Theater: “1536” at the Ambassador Theatre, in the West End
LONDON - The Brits are pretty stingy with their air conditioning, and you have to practically beg for ice with your beverage. But what they do get absolutely right is theater, and Ava Pickett’s profane, marvelous dramedy “1536” at the Ambassador in the West End provides ample evidence.
The play opens in a small village in rural Essex, circa 1536, as three twenty-something women learn of Queen Anne Boleyn’s imprisonment for treason and adultery. While they await updates, the gals engage in witty commentary on their own romantic struggles.
These struggles are real, for what life choices did women have back in the 1530s? You could marry up and become respectable, like the virginal Jane (Liv Hill) who is engaged to handsome Richard (Oliver Johnstone, a ringer for Chris Hemsworth).
Unbeknownst to Jane, however, Richard is more interested in shagging slutty, buxom Anna (Siena Kelly). A mouthy, take-no-guff-from-anybody kind of gal, Anna has achieved a certain notoriety in the village for sleeping around with married men.
The third friend is Mariella (Tanya Reynolds), a midwife who hates her job, particularly as she must tend to a pregnant woman who’s married William (George Kemp), Mariella’s former lover.
While each of the five actors is a star, you cannot take your eyes off Kelly as Anna. She’s lusty, outspoken and way too reckless. As news of Boleyn’s execution reaches the three women, Anna recoils and wonders if the same fate will happen to “bad girls” like her.
Beneath the raunchy, hilarious dialogue is Pickett’s clear, unsettling message: men will say anything to get what they want from women, and when push comes to shove, their word will be taken over a woman’s in a heartbeat. Have things changed so radically from the sixteenth century? Hmm.
Kudos to the Brits who in the world of theatre continue to show us how it’s done. Hope it crosses the Pond to Broadway. We’ll be the first in line.
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