Playhouse Creatures: 'dream-like' play is 'lively, funny and sharp-witted'
Anna Chancellor offers a 'glinting performance' alongside a 'strong' supporting cast

"April De Angelis goes time travelling again," said Clive Davis in The Times.
Last year, her portrait of Sarah Siddons, a star of the late 18th century London stage, premiered at the Hampstead Theatre in London. Now, a "vivacious" revival of 1993's "Playhouse Creatures" – her drama about the pioneering women who were the first to be allowed to tread the boards when the theatres reopened during the Restoration – has opened at the Orange Tree in Richmond.
This is a fractured, "dream-like" piece, in which we eavesdrop on the women backstage as they discuss their lives and their work, and also see them perform in front of an invisible audience – which, channelled through the production's "nuanced sound design", sometimes responds with "ripe misogynistic abuse". The historical figures are arguably one-dimensional. But the cast, led by Anna Chancellor as Mary Betterton, the "imperious" wife of a theatre owner, "invest their characters with so much passion and humour that you are content to overlook the minimal plotting".
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The play is more a "snapshot" of a moment in time than a "coloured-in portrait", said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. Still, it is an "entertaining and enlightening ensemble work" about that period in the 17th century when the first cohort of female actors emerged and were "regarded simultaneously as trailblazers, renegades and oddities akin to dancing bears". Chancellor gives a "glinting performance" as Betterton. Zoe Brough is a spirited Nell Gwyn. And there's strong support from Katherine Kingsley as Mrs Marshall, whose affair with an earl has left her vulnerable to audience abuse; Nicole Sawyerr as Mrs Farley, a "soapbox Christian" turned actress; and Doña Croll as "Doll Common".
The play evokes a "heady sense" of a new profession "for the young, poor, female and brave", said Libby Purves on TheatreCat.com. And Michael Oakley's deftly staged and handsomely designed revival is "lively, funny, sharp-witted" and thought-provoking.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Why are military experts so interested in Ukraine's drone attack?
TODAY'S BIG QUESTION The Zelenskyy government's massive surprise assault on Russian airfields was a decisive tactical victory — could it also be the start of a new era in autonomous warfare?
-
Critics push back as the government goes after Job Corps
The Explainer For at-risk teens, the program has been a lifeline
-
5 horror movies to sweat out this summer
The Week Recommends A sequel, a reboot and a follow up from the director of 'Barbarian' highlight the upcoming scary movie slate
-
Bryan Burrough's 6 favorite books about Old West gunfighters
Feature The Texas-raised author recommends works by T.J. Stiles, John Boessenecker, and more
-
Book reviews: 'Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference' and 'Is a River Alive?'
Feature A rallying cry for 'moral ambition' and the interwoven relationship between humans and rivers
-
A city of culture in the high Andes
The Week Recommends Cuenca is a must-visit for those keen to see the 'real Ecuador'
-
Green goddess salad recipe
The Week Recommends Avocado can be the creamy star of the show in this fresh, sharp salad
-
Ancient India: living traditions – 'ethereal and sensual' exhibition
The Week Recommends Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are explored in show that remains 'remarkably compact'
-
6 well-preserved homes built in the 1930s
Feature Featuring a restored 1934 colonial in Arizona and a cold-storage warehouse turned loft in New York City
-
Things in Nature Merely Grow: memoir of 'harsh beauty' after loss
The Week Recommends Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li's 'devastating' memoir explores the deaths of her two sons
-
Sirens: entertaining satire on the lives of the ultra-wealthy stars Julianne Moore
The Week Recommends This 'blackly comic affair' unfurls at a 'breakneck speed'