I'm always scanning for Restoration Comedies, so I was excited when I spotted Anna Chancellor in April de Angelis’ Playhouse Creatures at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. I knew we wouldn’t be able to get there, so I was delighted when I discovered they offered a live streaming of the performance.
We’ve lived streamed before from the Orange Tree Theatre, and they are always excellent. I was very excited about Playhouse Creatures, as it is billed as a “modern” Restoration Comedy.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, and we did enjoy the play, but it definitely wasn’t a Restoration Comedy by any stretch of the imagination. The acting, however, was superb. Anna Chancellor as Mrs Betterton simply owned the stage, and the actress playing Nell Gwynne was also excellent.
The play deals with the early years of the Restoration, after Charles II had decreed that women were allowed to perform on the stage. It's difficult to imagine today that there was a time when both the theatres were closed, and there were no women on the stage.
It seems a shame that we never see these actresses in a play. Instead they are stock characters: the mistress, the whore, goddesses and artists. A review of this production says "....Playhouse Creatures feels like a relatively minor piece of writing. Someone give 2025 de Angelis a suitcase full of cash to expand it into a prestige miniseries". I would have loved to see the play that these women were starring in.
But, all in all, it was an enjoyable couple of hours.