"To Have and to Hold"
Jaclyn Backhaus, whose Men on Boats and
India Pale Ale
impressed and entertained me, is back with Wives, an 80-minute play I
found categorically less impressive and entertaining. Admittedly, many
in the audience laughed, befuddling this stone-faced reviewer. Like Backhaus’s
earlier work, it reflects the author’s interest in issues of identity, principally
gender-related, with a playful mixture of the historical and contemporary, but in
a far-shakier humorous, structural, emotional, and intellectually accessible
context.  |
| Aadya Purvi, Sathya Sridharan, Purva Bedi. All photos: Joan Marcus. |
Each of the four parts is set in a different time period and
location: 1) the Chateau de Chenonceaux, Loire Valley, France, during the time
of Catherine de Medici’s (1519-1589) marriage (1547-1559) to King Henri II; 2)
Ketchum, Idaho, in 1961, at the funeral of author Ernest Hemingway, attended by
his two, still-living ex-wives (a third had died) and his widow; 3) the Madhavendra
Place, Rajasthan, India, in the 1920s, during the declining years of the Raj;
and 4) Oxbridge University, the fictional British university imagined by
Virginia Woolf, in the present day. Four actors, three of South Asian ancestry
(for reasons described in the interview but too complex to go into here), play different
roles in each scene
The first begins with a goofy French cook (Adina Verson),
speaking in a cockeyed Cockney accent (because, says Backhaus, the creative
team considered it hilarious). Like a souped-up Julia Child, she demonstrates how
to prepare chicken. Soon, though, she’ll be a participant in a farcically
overcooked sequence concerning the rivalry for Henri’s (Sathya Sridharan) affections
between his wife, Queen Cathy (Purva Bedi), and his rumbustious mistress, Diane
de Poitiers (Aadya Bedi). After Henri dies from his jousting wounds, and his
estate must be settled, the jousting women find their way to a rapprochement. If
you can’t fight ‘em, join ‘em, so to speak.
 |
| Purva Bedi, Aadya Bedi. |
Whatever antipatriarchal theme this ridiculously inflated
scene may have regarding the way women have been overshadowed by their husbands, is drowned in the wife-mistress rivalry as well as in the clownishly
exaggerated behavior, ahistorical language and contemporary slang (“fuckery”
being a Backhaus fave), and mugging.
A few degrees less broad, but still over-the-top, is the Hemingway
scene, in which Big Ern (Sridharan) delivers his own eulogy. Then, his first
wife, Hadley
Richardson (Purva Bedi), third wife, Martha Gelhorn (Aadya
Bedi), and widow, Mary
(Verson), all dressed in black, drink booze and dish about the late writer, even
taking turns mimicking his writing style. (Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer,
referenced in the scene, died in 1951.)
 |
| Adina Verson, Aadya Bedi, Purva Bedi. |
Backhaus wants to satirize how Hemingway’s success was
linked to what he’d gotten from these women, but, despite their bitchiness, and
Mary’s realization that he was “shitty,” just what was deleterious in his doing
so—or what it’s symbolic implications for us are—is left to our imagination. All
were accomplished women, Gelhorn in particular making her mark as one of the
top foreign correspondents of her day. Hemingway may not have been a model
husband but the scene illuminates little but bad feelings. And even if
Hemingway was a chauvinist and terrible spouse, why must that implicate other
husbands?
 |
| Aadya Bedi, Adina Verson. |
We move further away from the titular subject of wives in
the third section, which mocks outrageously narrowminded British colonial attitudes
toward Indian culture. The caricaturish villain here is a snootily accented
British official, Mr. Patterson (the comically versatile Verson). The bug up his
butt is the ministrations of a concubine cum witch named Roop Rai (Purva Bedi),
whose healing powers benefit Maharaja Madho Singh II (Sridharan).
Even the ruler’s wife, the Maharani (Aadya Bedi), supports Roop
Rai, who uses her powers to overcome the officious foreigner, someone who believes her hold
on the maharaja is a danger to colonial power. Once more, though, the emphasis
on larger-than-life comedic tropes trumps significant thematic points.
 |
| Sathya Sridharan, Purva Bedi, Aadya Bedi. |
 |
| Adina Verson, Aadya Bedi. |
 |
| Aadya Bedi. |
Barely any of this muddled play tickled my chauvinistic
funnybone, stirred my patriarchal emotions, or stimulated my caveman intellect.
In fact, I would have been unable to sit through it without the vivacious
talents of its four actors. And, while I was uncomfortable with director Margot
Bordelon’s insistence on Monty Pythonesque-broadness, I appreciated her imaginative
staging. Also offering worthwhile contributions are Reid Thompson’s wood-paneled
set, whose walls allow for locale-changing images, the colorful costumes of Valérie
Thérèse Bart, the versatile lighting of Amith Chandrashaker, and the effective
sound and music of Kate Marvin.
In the above-cited interview, provided as a handout, Jaclyn
Backhaus makes valuable points about what she thinks her play is saying. Unfortunately,
there’s more to be gained from her stated intentions than from how effectively she
communicates them in Wives.
Playwrights Horizons
416 W. 42nd St., NYC
Through October 6
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