Playhouse Creatures - Orange Tree
Once I finished watching Playhouse Creatures, directed by Michael Oakley and written by April De Angelis, I got on the train to head home and ran into Anna Chancellor, who played Mrs. Betterton. I had just seen her perform a parody of old plays on stage, exploring the threat of aging in her role and the struggles of women in theatre. Earlier in life, I had known her from My Lady Jane, where she played a mother who sleeps with a young man.
The entire play focused on women’s fears in theatre and the threat of what could happen versus what has happened, such as the ghosts of men in the audience, a pregnancy leading to homelessness, and a woman whose age makes her no longer valuable to the stage. Right away, when the actors began, I wasn’t as excited as before the lights dimmed. The sound cues were off, the pacing was slow, and at times it felt like the actors were reciting lines at each other rather than truly reacting.
The set design by Fotini Dimou was almost too close for comfort. When one actor opened a door to yell at the “people waiting for the show,” we could clearly see there was no one there. Still, I told myself to use my imagination and keep going. The casting choice of having a woman of color start out as a prudish character, then become vain once cast, and finally end up pregnant and destitute felt concerning.
There were moments of humor though, scenes where the women re-enacted classic plays, shifting positions on stage and creating quirky, playful interpretations. Those landed well. But the set pieces were often too large and angled toward one side of the audience, cutting off the view for others. I wanted to love it. I wanted to love a woman-centered piece, to see women play freely while also confronting the world around them. But instead, it felt as though it was not just going through the motions but weighed down by flimsy direction.
At one point, a speaker came on when someone in the audience called out, and Katherine Kingsley, playing Mrs. Marshall, a woman enduring abuse, continued her performance until she turned to witchcraft. The passion in this piece was what I wanted to find compelling: the desire, the theme of work, and the struggle of living as a woman in this field. But instead, it felt like a weak attempt at telling a woman’s story without truly exploring it.
When I spoke to Anna Chancellor on the train, I asked if she had enjoyed the show. “Yes,” she said, though without much conviction. Later, when we discussed theatre versus film, her dedication to the craft became clear. That conversation opened my eyes to something different, that this play was not just about women performing but about the dedication women have to this art form and to each other. Unfortunately, while the themes and intentions were clear, the execution felt flawed and unfocused.
The one moment I will not forget was the abortion scene, the attempt to end a pregnancy. I didn’t watch the women on stage; I watched the women in the audience. The older crowd, ranging from forty to seventy, were all holding something, whether that was themselves or the hands of the people beside them. That moment was powerful. Even if the play itself didn’t fully resonate or hit all its marks, it created a shared emotional space.
Moments like that, when women can hold each other and experience something raw together, are what make theatre beautiful. For Playhouse Creatures, that was the story behind the story: real women, real reactions, and the enduring truth of why we keep returning to the stage.
