The final production in Alberta Theatre Projects’ season is WILDWOMAN by Kat Sandler. It’s a telling of Prince Henry of France, who becomes King Henry II. The play depicts life for Henry, as prince, when he marries Catherine de’ Midici. We then see her life as it evolves as Queen. The play is meant to be a strong example of contemporary Canadian theatre, being fearless, mixing sharp humour with emotional weight. It’s meant to be uncomfortable and force you to examine modern life through the lens of a time of royalty in France.
That’s its intention, to shock you and give you a laugh at the same time; to take a deeper look at corruption and absolute power and how it corrupts the soul. And it does that. But it also drags audience members through the depths of hell and violence to get there, all played like a cutting edge, ‘it’s so bad it’s good,’ kind of humour, and the lesson isn’t worth the pain.
WILDWOMAN goes in depth into Catherine (Synthia Yusuf) and her life. She marries Henry (Nathan Kay) when they are both aged 14. He has a mistress Didi (N Girgis) who is 19 years his senior, who runs the show. Didi has all the power and Catherine is just a vessel to bear children. Throw in Pete (Connor Suart), a wildman that Henry takes in for fun, and Kitty (Elizabeth Barrett) a maidservant, to complete the ensemble.
Catherine is ambitious, she wants to serve on the King’s Council, but there are no women allowed, and Henry will keep her off of it because he knows how much she wants it. Every move in the play is meant to oppress Catherine and the play almost takes pleasure in showing her pain and suffering. And then everything flips on its head.
The talent on stage is immense, with the cast filling out their roles so completely, it’s almost hard to tell that they are playing roles. Kay is an absolute misogynistic dictator, while Girgis eats up all the power she has as his mistress. There is a softness in Barrett and Suart, along with their performance together and that same softness flickers in Catherine. It definitely gets snuffed out.
Narda McCarroll’s set design is beautiful, allowing the setting to change with key set pieces moving in and out. Alaia Hamer’s costume design is thoughtful, while Gerald King’s lighting design and Nancy Tam’s sound design work together to build the tension in the play.
This play feels like acute torture. It’s hard to watch Catherine being treated the way she is by Henry, while being pressured to be a better vessel to deliver children that she doesn’t even manage to get connected to. It’s awful people behaving in vomit-inducing ways and it’s passed off as entertainment. It’s written in such a way that you’re supposed to laugh, but this script that is presented as smart and cutting edge comes across as snarky and only borderline witty.
Theatre and art are meant to provoke, and this production certainly does that. But there are so many more stories available that don’t need to portray the depths of violence against women and their dehumanization to depict the parallels of the world we’re living in. We can just turn on the television and watch the news on loop to get that exact same effect. Do I need to be sliced open and bleeding to feel the horror?
My answer is no. WILDWOMAN delights in the bloodshed.
Alberta Theatre Projects in association with Gateway Theatre’s production of WILDWOMAN runs until May 10. More information is available online.
Photo Credit: Synthia Yusuf, Nathan Kay and N Girgis in WILDWOMAN. Photo by Benjamin Laird