Review: THE MANNEQUIN at We Happy Few

Because the internet was not yet available, Madame de Staël (1766-1817) practiced being an influencer the old fashioned way: in a room (le salon!) with fellow smart people. An experienced writer as well, though not primarily a playwright, her 1811 farce, The Mannequin, has been smartly mounted by We Happy Few, a company that welcomes and values antique plays and proves their worth to contemporary audiences. Kerry McGee directed this translation by Vivian Folkenflick.

Though Germaine de Staël was born in Paris, her family were Swiss and German, so her awareness of French sensitivity to the non-French gives her part of a comedy toolkit which then spreads to the French national addiction with how non-Parisians pronounce the French language. A German father in The Mannequin, Monsieur Morliere (Andrew Quilpa, whose effort to act often loses the plot) has betrothed his daughter Sophie (Gill Rydholm) to a French nobleman, Monsieur de Ville (EM German), despite the fact that de Ville, A, is a pompous, sexist narcissist and B, she's in love with a poor artist, Frederich (Esteban Marmolejo-Suarez). Clever (attractive, self-aware, modern, smart, outspoken, liberated) Sophie engineers a farcical game plan to honorably extricate her father from his promise of her hand to M. de Ville. Not only is Sophie's choice hilarious, it's way ahead of its time for a woman of 1811; Madame de Staël saw the future, and the women in the future she saw had agency. We happy few, indeed.

Sophie manages her scheme in her charming empire-waisted gown (costume designs by Wendy Snow Walker), and her well-dressed and quietly ladylike “cousin” wears one too as well as a then-fashionable poke bonnet and elbow length gloves. Jon Reynolds has kept the scenic elements gracefully simple—a curtained cyc surrounds the stage, and a few furniture pieces do the rest of the trick. There are a few too many of Jason Aufdem-Brinke's light cues for so brief a play, but the recurring bump of light each time Sophie's father fantasizes that with a French son-in-law, he'll always have Paris definitely adds to the comedy.

Marmolejo-Suarez plays Frederich as a sort of Boy Next Door which doesn't quite fit 1811, but it does match well with the eternal sunshine that Rydholm brings to the role of Sophie. And German's M. de Ville provides much of the comedic core of The Mannequin. Narcissistic, pompous, sexist idiots never quite do know how funny they are, and German serves plenty of “idiot.” Germaine de Staël, in her time, could have seen women in trouser roles in opera; those performances paved the rest of the 19th century for Bernhardt and the 20th and 21st for Eva Le Galliene, Maude Adams, Vanessa Redgrave, and Anna Deavere Smith—natural, convincing, fair play.

We Happy Few's light and brief (70 minutes) production about the serious topic of female marital freedom runs through June 6 at CHAW, the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop at 545 7th St. SE, a short walk from the Eastern Market Metro.

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