Pinchy Theatre present It’s a Mad Mad Mad Madge at The Glitch, billing it as “a live resurrection” of Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), Duchess of Newcastle, poet and philosopher. Given to melancholia, her emotional state was sometimes referred to as madness, but as this show proves, there was a lot more to her.
Directed by Clare Packham, who co-writes with musical director Fintan Kealy, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Madge features a solo performance from Esmée Cook (on 10 March) that is lively, witty, reflective, playful, divisive, and emotional. As the script tells us, this is no revival, nor is it a play. Despite the promise of resurrection there is no attempt at a narrative story or character development.
What the show is can mean different things to different people. It is a spotlight on a 17th century woman who had privilege but also dealt with childhood trauma. She married an older widower with children but had none herself. She wrote and published widely, but was poorly reviewed and rarely read. She stands before us first in a modern corset bra and sweatpants, then in a costume change in a period dress with boned bodice and many underskirts.
She yells, sings, and chants, utilising a sound loop system that weaves in chanting and phrases that are repeated a lot. A pile of ashes behind her becomes a place to find the types of men who pepper her life (the tiger, the wolf) and lead into a modernised recitation of Cavendish’s poem A World Made By Atoms. Elsewhere, she purrs about her older husband “be my daddy” or reflects on a period dramatisation of her life and who might be cast.
In a space which only holds a small number of people, Cook can easily connect with everyone in the audience, and we all feel part of this character study of ‘mad Margaret’, whatever we may know about her before going in. Lighting and set design are minimal but allow a range of ideas and settings to be explored. An anecdote about the desecration of family graves by Roundhead soldiers is shocking; while other moments offer opportunities to laugh with this vibrant woman who feels contemporary and real.
Bringing back a historical character without doggedly dealing with the facts as specified on their Wikipedia page is not a new idea. SIX assembled all the wives of Henry VIII together; Bloody Mary offered his daughter Mary Tudor the chance to speak for herself. Mary and the Hyenas made a musical from the life and work Mary Wollstonecraft. For Margaret Cavendish, a character who has a strangeness and immedicacy that transcends the plain facts, an unusual treatment feels right, and I enjoyed the direct approach taken by Packham and Kealy.
The experimental nature of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Madge will not appeal to everyone, but it exemplifies what small-scale fringe shows are all about. Even an unexpected show stop to sort a technical issue (by turning the offending element off and on again) was handled well and kept us on side, while the moments of audience participation worked well, including the wearing of goggles at one point to avoid any unfortunate ‘sand in eye’ incidents.
Fascinating, bold and reflective, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Madge has now finished its run at The Glitch but for details on this and other shows by Pinchy Theatre go to their website.
4 stars.
Image credit: Pinchy Theatre