Shaw Festival 2024/The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley, directed by Philip Akin, Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre, closes Oct. 12. Tickets here.
The Shaw Festival is presenting American writer Marcus Gardley’s acclaimed 2014 play. The story is set in 1813 New Orleans, just as the United States imposes its full control on the Louisiana Purchase that it acquired from France in 1803.
Garvey was apparently inspired by Spanish playwright Federico Garcia Lorca’s 1936 masterpiece, The House of Bernarda Alba. Like that searing claustrophobic drama, Garvey’s mother, Beartrice Albans (Monica Parks), is attempting to keep control of her daughters.
Central to the play is the practice of plaçage, where free women of colour, usually Creoles, formed relationships with White men, who paid their mothers a sum of money for their daughters to become common-law wives. The tyrannical martinet Beartrice is trying to stop her three daughters from becoming placeés by forbidding them from attending the Quadroon Ball where they will be on display to the White men.
As the play opens, the body of Lazare Albans lies in state, so to speak, and Beartrice is worried about the inheritance she will receive, one that is shared with Lazare’s white family. She is obsessed with getting the deed to her house. There is also talk among the three daughters about secretly attending the ball, despite their mother, who has declared a seven-month period of closed mourning.
The daughters have different coloured skin tones, with the lighter being the more valuable. Both the oldest, Agnes, age 19, (Deborah Castrilli), and the youngest Odette, 16, (Ryann Myers) are in love with the rich Ramon Le Pip, who has expressed an interest in Agnes and is waiting for her at the ball.
Odette is the most beautiful, but has the darkest skin colour, thus not posing a threat to the lighter-skinned Agnes. Nonetheless, she plans to sneak off to the ball with Agnes. The middle sister, Maude Lynn, 18, (Rais Clarke-Mendes) has the lightest skin colour but is obsessed with religion, and has no interest in love matters.
There are three other women in this disturbing play.
Marie Josephine (Cheryl Mullings) is Beartrice’s half mad sister who once tried to run away with a Black drummer. She is like a Cassandra who sees gloom and doom everywhere, but understands the naked truth of delusion that envelops the household. Makeda (Sophia Walker) is Beartrice’s Haitian slave, who has been continuously promised her freedom, and knows about conjuring spells and the practice of voodoo.
La Veuve (Nehassaiu deGannes), Beartrice’s sworn enemy, on the guise of a sympathy visit, accuses Beartrice of murdering Lazare to get the inheritance, while stoking up Makeda’s fears about never being able to earn her freedom, and what will happen when American draconian slavery laws are in place now that Louisiana has become a state.
Essentially, this is a play about freedom. Everyone has their own agenda as to what freedom is, or what the lack of it means, but it is also about repressed sexuality, superstition, sibling rivalry, race relations, and the plight of women. It’s part melodrama, part tragedy, part ghost story. Incantations and chants merge with real life angst, and director Philip Akin has ensured that his strong cast keeps the rich tapestry of emotions flowing at full tilt.
The House That Will Not Stand is a house divided, and its fall is inevitable as old traditions clash with individual yearnings and dreams of personal agency. Gardley’s play is a rich theatrical experience.
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