Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – In the wobbly, forcefully-acted THE WELKIN, Lucy Kirkwood explores justice and power vis-à-vis housekeeping women

• By drediman
• June 13, 2024
• No Comments

Last night, Atlantic Theater Company’s production of The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood — a British playwright perhaps best known for penning such well-received plays as Chimerica and The Children — opened Off-Broadway at the Linda Gross Theater in Chelsea. Set in 1700s England, Kirkwood’s meaty if wobbly new play tells the story of a motley group of housekeeping women — a so-called “jury of matrons” — selected to determine, via a unanimous vote, the mortal fate of a fiery young woman accused of murdering the child of a wealthy local family.

In its exploration of justice and power vis-à-vis the working class woman, the piece strikes me as a feminist variation on the classic play Twelve Angry Men, with a good helping of The Crucible on the side. In a likely deliberate decision by director Sarah Benson, each actress has been given ample leeway to portray their respective roles as it viscerally strikes them — perhaps to reinforce the universality of the play’s heavy and somewhat still-relevant themes (which would go a long way in explaining the bizarre insertion of a group sing of The Bangles’ “Manic Monday”). It’ll come as no surprise that a necessary outcome of all this is that each performance seems to arise from its own alternate universe.

The overall effect is strange, which is only made more disorienting given the naturalistic, dimly-lit set (by the increasingly ubiquitous design collective dots) and period costumes, design choices that seem at odds with the director’s intention. Nevertheless, the Atlantic Theater production is forcefully acted by a relatively large, very accomplished ensemble cast — comprised for the most part of women — led by a committed Sandra Oh as the local midwife and the jury’s passionate if overly didactic firebrand. But because the intensity rarely flags, I found myself occasionally numbed for stretches of the lengthy play.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

THE WELKIN
Off-Broadway, Play
Atlantic Theater Company
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through June 30