WILDWOMAN, by Kat Sadler (who also directed), is part of the {{her words}} festival at Soulpepper and I attended the first preview performance on Thursday night at the Young Centre. It’s not usual to review previews but I’m out of the country for most of the run proper so there it is.   It’s an interesting piece.  It weaves together two (more or less) real stories that are quite tenuously related into a single integrated narrative that explores humanity, power and the role of women in society.

We are in 16th century France.  One plot arc concerns the rise to power of Catherine de’Medici from fourteen year old bride of the king’s second son to Queen Consort and, ultimately Regent of France closing with her boldest/most brutal act; The Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.  The second plot arc deals with the “Wild Man” Pedro de Gonzalez; alleged to have been captured in the wild in the Canaries but actually just a normal bloke with a rare medical condition that made him super hairy.  In real life he was married off to one of Catherine’s ladies and their children, seen as freak, used as diplomatic gifts.  This story gave rise to the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast.

There’s a lot going on in France in this period and, apart from frequent dismissive references by various characters to “Proddies” you might not know that we are in the middle of Wars of Religion that go on for decades and to some extent prefigure the 30 Years War in the following century.  I don’t think you need the historical background to understand or enjoy the play but it helps in  the same way that understanding The Wars of the Roses helps make sense of Richard III.

The first half of the play shows a somewhat naive Catherine being shut out of power by her husband Prince (later King) Henry, who sees her as a baby machine and prefers jousting and his much older mistress Diane de Poitiers (Didi) who acquires significant wealth and power.  He is basically an asshole.  At the same time he has formed a relationship with the Wild Man. Pete, who is initially treated as a pet but is taught to read by Didi, given a place at court and then married off to a servant, Kitty.  This couple rapidly produce a string of babies to the chagrin of Henry and, especially Catherine.  There’s a lot of very raunchy physical humour around the two couples’ attempts at baby making.

In the end Catherine pops a puppy but whether this is due to coaching from Didi on how to deal with Henry’s penile deformity or a brief fling with Pete isn’t entirely clear though it’s probably the latter as Catherine goes to great lengths to conceal the baby’s hairiness to the extent of using drugs that probably are partly responsible for the boy’s (Francis II) early death.  After this Catherine has a whole bunch of children who are married off at early ages as part of (now King) Henry’s diplomatic strategy parallelling the use of Didi’s children as freak gifts.

Henry gets a lance in the face at his 40th birthday joust and dies soon after; with or without a helping hand from Catherine.  She struggles to gain a grip on power after her son becomes king but does take the opportunity to cut Didi down to size.  Francis doesn’t last long and is succeeded by his brother as Charles IX.  Catherine becomes Regent and basically starts throwing her weight around.  Pete refuses to become part of her plans, despite extreme pressure, or her lover; remaining loyal to Didi and his kids.  Catherine has, in fact, become a much smarter version of her first husband and is also an asshole.  And so to massacring “Proddies”.

So here’s the twisted skein.  Pete, the wild man who eats babies, becomes, effectively, an Erasmian humanist.  Catherine, seeking power in a way unbecoming woman’s natural state, becomes a monster.  Who now is the Beauty and who the Beast?

OK so it’s a long and complicated play but it’s realised very well.  At the centre is Rose Napoli as Catherine.  She has a major psychological arc to travel and she does it convincingly.  Her portrayal of the mature, all powerful, swaggering Catherine is particularly striking.  Dan Mousseau as pete traverses an equally complex arc and does it beautifully.  The transformation from eager to please pet to reluctant statesman is very well done.  Rosemary Dunsmore as Didi has to convince as the sexually (and politically) voracious older woman and she does this with considerable courage.  Gabriella Sundar Singh is an attractive and often very funny Kitty and Tony Ofori is perfectly awful, in the best sense, as Henry; portraying him as a strutting, swaggering bully who is simultaneously pathetically dependent on Didi.

It’s a very physical play with a lot of fighting and fucking.  Anita Nittoly, the Fight and Intimacy Director, earns her fee ten times over.  It’s also quite striking visually from the antler framed set (nick Blais) to the dramatic lighting plot (Kimberly Purcell) and the clever sound stage (Maddie Bautista).  It also flows effectively with no superfluity of props and those used moved in and out efficiently.  All in all, the stagecraft is excellent.

This is quite a bold play that will offend some and baffle others but I found that despite some passages that made more sense in retrospect than at the time that it achieved what it set out to do; which was to ask awkward questions about power and gender in a thoroughly theatrical way.

WILDWOMAN continues at the Young Centre until October 29th.  Photo credits Dahlia Katz.