Tiana Lockhart and Julia Williams. Photo by Shealyn Jae Photography.
Barbara Kahn’s screwball comedy, “The Lady Was a Gentleman,” is a hilarious mélange of six disparate women in 1858 St. Louis. Charlotte Cushman (Julia Williams), a famous actor, is on a theatrical tour with scene partner Deirdre Ryan (Madison Bacino) and personal assistant Sallie Mercer (Tiana Lockhart). Mercer, a free Black woman, seems to be the brains of the bunch, driving the play’s narrative structure and managing, somehow, to keep its delightful spaghetti of a plot from tying itself in knots. Stage door groupie Emma Crow (Julia Creutzer) squirms her way into the action. The circle is also joined by the oh-so-French Marie Louise Yvette L’Amour (Kaitlyn Fowler), a mail-order bride who’s on the lookout for her contractually betrothed, a Mr. Partridge. The latter, as it happens, is no ‘mister,’ but rather the pistol-packing frontierswoman, Jane Partridge (Hannah Ruth Wellons).
Emma Hooks directs Strand’s fine production…The pace is suitably rapid-fire, movement alternates between frenzy and stillness at just the right moments, and there’s never a sense of let-up.
Wellons is transcendently wacky in the role of Partridge. At times, she seems to be channeling Marjorie Main but without the deadpan. “I could eat a horse if’n I wasn’t so fond of ‘em,” she tells Marie, with a grin that almost never leaves her face. Fowler, as Marie, has a different comic job and does it brilliantly. Her character feels put-upon and misunderstood, even while perpetrating a (slightly predictable) deception on Partridge and the others. In a play where every single scene seems to include at least one scream, Fowler’s squeals are the funniest and the highest-pitched. If amplified, they could probably shatter crystal.
Cushman and Ryan have a bit of a mutual infatuation. Bacino plays Ryan’s hunger to the extreme—quite literally—spending most of the second act chewing props as well as the scenery. The ingenue, Emma Crow, is given aching earnestness by Creutzer. Their performance is painfully funny and includes some of the evening’s best pratfalls in hoop skirts. Cushman’s sidekick Mercer is deftly brought to life by Tiana Lockhart. Master of the bemused side-eye, Lockhart’s character is also a great politician. When her middle-aged employer asks, “do you think I’m too old to play Romeo?” she replies, “Not this year. Maybe next year.”
If Sallie is the eye of the storm, its focal point is Charlotte. Julia Williams makes the character oddly grounded—completely free to explore her desires, but feeling the weight of responsibilities at the same time. A subtle balance like that is hard to pull off in a comedy of this style, but Williams is as forceful as she is funny. Like Bacino, Lockhart, and Wellons, Williams makes her Strand debut here. We hope to see much more of her work in the future.
The character of Charlotte Cushman is based on reality. The real Cushman was celebrated in her time but largely forgotten by history since. Romantically linked to Emma Stebbins, the sculptor responsible for the statue atop New York’s Bethesda Fountain, she toured the U.S. and internationally, performing Shakespeare and contemporary tragedies. Her dalliance with Emma Crow was one of many infidelities, and her 1858 appearance in St Louis is part of one of the aging actor’s half-dozen comeback tours. She later performed the Scottish Play for President Lincoln and accumulated quite a bit of wealth before dying of pneumonia in her late fifties.
Emma Hooks directs Strand’s fine production of Kahn’s 2003 script. The pace is suitably rapid-fire, movement alternates between frenzy and stillness at just the right moments, and there’s never a sense of let-up. Robert Brooks’ scenery features a thankfully sturdy fainting couch in Cushman’s theater dressing room, and it combines with lighting by Amy Rhodes to frame the story very nicely. Gorgeous and witty sound design is by Mo Oslejsek, who’s a real up-and-comer. You’ll hear that name a lot and soon. Aria Mairin’s costumes and Erin Riley’s hats are very much front and center in this period piece, and the work is a complete hoot.
Strand Theater is nearly at the finish line of a wonderful 15th season, which will close with “R/J,” a new adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” next month. While attending performances of “The Lady Was a Gentleman,” audiences can also enjoy artwork by Lorraine Imwold in the theater lobby.
Running time: One hour and 45 minutes with one intermission.
Advisory: Adult themes, references to enslavement, and use of a prop handgun.
“The Lady Was a Gentleman” runs through May 21, 2023 at Strand Theater Company, 5426 Harford Road, Baltimore, MD 21214. For more information and tickets, go online. For ticket inquiries, please contact the box office at (443) 874-4917. Face masks are required.
