Anjou: Lady Chamberlain : reviewed by Laurie Fyffe
Re-visiting Shakespeare is a perennial theatrical exercise, and Richard the Third’s malevolent reign in the play bearing his name supports many such experiments. Particularly as the play features such grandly betrayed and suffering women. Dipping into this territory is playwright Sarah Haley’s Anjou. In a world both Shakespearean and somewhere in the geography of modernity, we begin with the funeral of Anne’s husband. Soon, we know, she will succumb mysteriously to the wooing of a vain and culpable Richard, culpable for no less crime than having murdered Anne’s spouse. Throughout it all, Margaret states her case, grieving for both her husband and son, abandoned utterly and at Richard’s mercy. …