During the Restoration, the plays of Aphra Behn were as popular as those of Wycherley and Congreve. Now they are often perceived as curiosities despite Virginia Woolf’s assertion that: “All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn‚ for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”
The women in The Rover use the carnival in Venice as an opportunity to win their heart’s desire. Helena, whose brother has decided that she must enter a nunnery, dresses up as a Gypsy and then a page to win the love of the rover of the title, the philandering Willmore. Her sister, Florinda, defies her father and brother to marry the man she loves. It is an astonishing play for a woman to have written at that time, although there are limits to the women’s agency: the courtesan Angellica remains a loser in this game of love and money, and you wonder how these lively women will fare within the confines of marriage. Behn wrote out of need, not because she was some kind of 17th-century proto-feminist, and her plays reflect the society of the time.
It would be good, however, to see a production of one of Behn’s plays that subverts 17th-century theatrical and social convention, rather than playing to it. This isn’t that production, although Naomi Jones’s production has charm and freshness, particularly in the early intimate scenes that are played in the theatre’s galleried bar area. Once in the theatre, the show never quite recovers its momentum, and the long traverse staging is hard on the audience and actors, many of whom do not have the technique to deal with the noise and a space that leeches energy.
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