Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Shakespeare, ammiright? WRONG. Like so many of those popular “of the times” lines attributed to the plagiarizing bastard, this one also doesn’t belong to Billy Shakes. (It’s actually a deeply distorted misquote from William Congreve’s The Mourning Bride, 1697 but that’s a tale for another time.) But the sentiment is definitely there. Famous. Timeless. Universal appeal. All percolating up and out of the Jacobean Era of England from that historically renowned master of page and pen, The Bard, William Shakespeare. (What made him so special, huh? There were other bards, you know, how come he gets the ‘THE’ in front of him when all he really did was steal work that wasn’t his and make it appear more favorable?) If those questions burn under your skin, if those sentiments irk the humors of your internal bile, then Jane Anger is the play for you! Appearing live on the main stage of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre, as the penultimate mainstage offering of their 2024/2025 season, directed by Suzanne Beal, this evocative and hilarious rewriting of history as we know it is exactly what the world needs right now when it comes to theatrical engagement.
Picture it— London— 1606 and the city has just gone into plague-induced lockdown. Again. Poor, pitiable William Shakespeare is trapped in his apartment, trying to write the next great— whatever. This time it’s King Lear, with an ‘a’ and this time he’s all blocked up— physically and mentally— with no place to go. Could be dreary, right? Playwright Talene Monahon has a very different idea. This high-octane, hilariously-intense play is some sort of mythical hybrid— think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood meets Deadpool but with less cursing…well a little less at any rate…and more Shakespeare. You’ve got The Bard, with his woebegone writer’s block, his stooge— Francis Sir— and the unexpected arrival of the show’s titular character, plus the looming threat of the imminent appearance of poor Anne Hathaway, what could possibly go wrong? Or right?
The claustrophobia of a teeny, tiny Jacobean England apartment is captured in all its glorious essence by Scenic Designer David DiFalco. The set is pulled forward, all but in the audience’s laps (by intentional design, of course) really encapsulating that sense of quarantine, lockdown, and being trapped; a notion we’re all too recently familiar with. The walls and window of the flat are simple but transportive; augmented by the work of Lighting Designer Rhett Wolford, you get the sense of being secluded and stuck. Sound Designer Kaydin Hamby, in addition to all of those “London Plague Noises” that are an absolute necessity, gives the audience some really edgy interstitial music at exactly the right moments, particularly whenever the titular character of Jane Anger is about to make an appearance or big statement. The show’s soundscape is strident and twitchy, not unlike our titular heroine and both Hemby on SFX and Wolford on illumination deserve props for their enhancing design work which serves to really amp-up the overall experience.
In case you were uncertain as to the show’s setting, Costume Designers Elizabeth Tringali and Judy Harkins have you covered there. Jane Anger looks appropriately distressed, matching her rough-n-tumble workhouse accent, while Shakespeare himself looks like— well— what you’d expect Shakespeare to look like, in period garb. Tringali and Harkins take great pains to ensure that Francis Sir looks like something ripped out of Monty Python’s Spamalot and dropped down into this play by mistake (which follows along the way Talene Monahon seems to have written the character as the Francis Sir character is the catalyst for a lot of those ‘who’s on first’ and high-farce moments.) And then when the audience is finally treated to the appearance of Anne Hathaway, she’s bedecked in nothing shy of regal blues and affluence, marking a clear delineation between her seat of stature and Jane’s lack thereof. Without getting into the nitty-gritty particulars, Properties Designer Lori Boyd simply…slays…with the various props that appear in this show; insert appropriate applause for Boyd here (and if you can’t, don’t worry, Shakespeare will lend you…a hand!)
Talene Monahon’s work is really quite the bombastic little devastator of comedy. With a darkly imploding nugget of heinous truth buried beneath the layers and layers of hilarity, it’s a ‘yes-we-need-this-show-right-now’ kind of show. Monahon’s work is this unique blend of hot high-comedy with Monty Python low-brow nonsense, and skewers of steep English farce, all wrapped up in a shell of immersive audience ‘in-your-faceness.’ And while Monahon steers the show down this bombastic path of laugh-a-minute nonsense, there’s a few gravity-bombs loaded with social intensity and emotional depth that really hit hard and fast once they’re dropped, which really shake up the entire experience, which makes a perfect compliment to the bit of the show where the fourth wall implodes into smithereens and the actors are running rampant through the house like they’ve caught themselves on fire and the only way to extinguish the flames is to pull the audience into their shenanigans. One of the most profound lines comes out at the end— “He was a great writer. He was a bad man. How confusing.” It strikes home particularly hard in the present day as well; how someone can have brilliant writing and be a terrible person, and you love their work, but hate them once you discover who they truly are. It’s that shatter-glass reality moment where the scene-work tips the scales from absurdist comedic insanity and crashes back to reality because gravity reactivated and the audience is blindsided by the heaviness as it tumbles down from the space-fantasy into existence. Monahon does so in such a way that really feels both cathartic and confusing but in a profoundly striking fashion.
If there’s a complaint to be had it’s that the show runs it’s course without intermission. (It appears to be written that way.) But that said, nowhere in the work does it feel like you could drop a 15-minute pause without totally obliterating the overall pacing and flow of the show. A decision that Director Suzanne Beal stand by. Beal’s pacing is tight, the action both frenetic and perpetual, even in those slower moments of actualization near the end. It just feels like its length, which is not something that, broadly speaking, modern audiences are accustomed to. Beal’s initial placement of Jane Anger, out amidst the audience with her vivacious and bombastic effervescence, is incredibly intuitive. It helps prime the audience for the type of wild ride they’re about to experience as the play itself intentionally derails into chaos both on and off stage.
It’s hard to talk about Anne Hathaway (Mallorie Stern) in a ‘last on/least of’ way because she’s so much more than that. Stern’s initial portrayal is a heightened caricature approach where she plays up the stereotypes of which Shakespeare so readily accuses her, much to the chuckling enjoyment of the audience. Everything from the way she speaks to the way she drifts through the apartment screams ‘tries to hard’ and the audience is there for it. An intense character experience, as she starts off in this bubbly innocent prattling state, Stern goes from self-contained, almost two-dimensional to this roaring explosion of found fury and it’s fantastic to watch. Once she finds her inner anger, she and Jane are in this let’s burn history to the ground and rewrite it as herstory (shoutout to lighting designer Rhett Wolford once again because here is where some high octane lighting roars through the theatrical experience and you’re not sure if you’re attending a play or a ‘burn the patriarchy’ rally.)
Francis Sir (Jeremy Myers) is the walking epitome of a Monty Python joke. Silly, frivolous, almost completely surplus to requirement except for the fact that he escalates everything with his nonsense. And Myers’ comic timing and delivery is divine, particularly when he’s engaging with Shakespeare (Bill Dennison) in that whole ‘who’s on first’ style sketch early on over what his actual name is. Once Myers gets to leap through the fourth wall and flit about in the house, it’s even more engagingly hysterical and you won’t be able to keep a straight face as he passes you by. The way he plays up the accent, the affectation, and the overall simplicity of the character is really impressive and it keeps you engaged with the narrative, as the storyline of the show races deeper and deeper down that steeply-maddening cliff of malady.
Arrogant, cringe, giving the ick for miles, so much so that every time Shakespeare (Bill Dennison) wanders near that open window you’re sort of hoping that someone punts him in the ass and yeets him through it. Watching Dennison be this revolting, repulsive incarnation of Shakespeare’s toxic, misogynistic existence creates a hard split in the mind and heart; how can we love his work? Why is that Talene Monahon puts on display the very worst of him and keeps reminding us that simply by doing so, he continues to influence our day to day? And Dennison just rolls with the role, humorous at first, but by the time the show is rapidly approaching its conclusion, you’re ready to— rip him limb from limb, let’s say. Dennison captures those augmented moments of self-pitying ennui when Shakespeare is bemoaning his writer’s block in the window like a sullen, spoiled emo-brat and snarls about once the complaints start zinging his way. Dennison is incredibly talented and makes the audience readily loathe Shakespeare, the man, within the context of this play, straight out the gate.
As for Miss Title-of-Play herself, Jane Anger, Shea-Mikal Green is a loaded explosion, a force to be reckoned with, a tour-du-force, and all of those other hot-bombastic labels that describe a volcanic eruption incarnate. While there are moments of stillness in Green’s portrayal, mostly internalized, and often percolating delicately in the background once Anne Hathaway arrives, there is a vivacious externalized intensity that simply doesn’t quit, even when she’s pleading her case to Shakespeare, as best she can without hauling off and slugging him. Cheeky, mouthy, flawless with the hard-ass impoverished accent of the time, Shea-Mikal Green is the perfect embodiment of this real-life woman who is both person and sentiment; Jane Anger— an accurate representation of women, all too readily overlooked in history. And when she lets loose— hold onto your plague-mask! It’s wild, completely unhinged and completely laugh-out-loud-worthy to watch her go on this well-earned tear, vocally, physically, and emotionally.
Don’t find yourself in a purple pickle. There’s a maelstrom of stage insanity and some exceptionally stunning performances happening on the Maryland Ensemble Theatre’s main stage this spring. Catch Jane Anger playing through Easter weekend and you won’t be sorry that you did.
Running Time: Approximately 105 minutes with no intermission
Jane Anger plays through April 19th 2025 on the Main Stage of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre in the Historic FSK Hotel building— 31 W. Patrick street in downtown historic Frederick, MD. For tickets call the box office at (301) 694-4744 or purchase them online.
