Review: WIVES at East West Players

We learn practically from the first words of Jaclyn Backhaus’s play WIVES that the patriarchy is alive, well and functioning in its familiar ogre-some capacity to crush the hopes, dreams and progress of everything else in its path.  Men, women, mistresses, husbands…and, sure, wives. Especially wives! This oppression is the same as it ever was whether the location is 16th century France, 1960s Idaho, Rajasthan India at the turn of the century or amidst a campus group of witches in the hallowed halls of a British academic institution, present day.

This characterization of the patriarchy’s historic brutality should be revelatory to very few, although those inclined to laugh or rage at the treatment of its characters across time (and WIVES encourages both emotions about equally) may find themselves at home at the David Henry Hwang Theatre where East West Players is staging the play’s L.A. premiere.

The rest of us, maybe not so much. Directed by Arpita Mukherjee in a co-production between EWP and Hypokrit Live Arts, the production is tonally imbalanced and far more corny than it is cutting or inspiring. We are expected to get behind the women of WIVES and celebrate their self-affirming breakthroughs and triumphs over the straw men brutes Backhaus throws across their paths. Hell, on at least one occasion, a sympathetic male character even gets into the act…aligned against a far less enlightened gentleman, of course. Along the way, the play offers a few insights, scattered laughs and a ton of heavy-handed self-actualization. Even at 90 minutes, this one feels repetitive.

In enacting the collection of time-spanning wives, mistresses, sorceresses and bounders, performers Rachna Khatau, E.M. Davis, Arasha and Parvesh Cheena embrace this material with plenty of conviction and comic chops. Similarly, there’s nothing amiss in the physical production as rendered by scenic designer Yoon Bae, lighting designer Pablo Santiago and sound designer/composer Andrea Allmond.

Our tale begins in the kitchen of the Medicis where a cook (played by E.M. Davis), up to her armpits in dead chickens, is delivering a de facto food prep lesson involving fowl and onions. She is interrupted by Queen Catherine (Khatau) who informs the cook that the royal banquet she is preparing will now include Diane (Arasha), mistress to her husband. King Henri. With no love lost between these two rivals for the affection of the King (Cheena), the Queen schemes to disinherit and destroy Diane…until she decides instead to flip the script and align with Diane to “subvert the usual story.” “You’re reckless. You’ve got a reckless spirit,” Diane tells the Queen. “I know,” is her former rival’s reply. The segment ends with a celebratory dance to the song, “A Wives World.”

…That bit of “You go, girl!” boosterism? Get accustomed to it, as some form of that messaging – uttered person to person or person to self – will be a running strain of WIVES…

The tone of act 2 is more acidy as the action shifts to Idaho where the ghost of Ernest Hemingway (Cheena) delivers his own eulogy. Emphasizing his position as a seeker of truth even though he is anything but, Big Ern declares he has “nothing to say” to his wife, ex-wives and mistresses. Three of these women (Khatau, David and Arasha) are still around to gather at his grave to consider his legacy (overrated) and his treatment of them (largely crappy). As it was with the Medicis, a man’s death becomes an occasion for drinking, bonding, cutting loose. Plenty of f-bombs and the torching of a prized marlin ensue. Say what you will about WIVES, the play serves up more than one occasion to fire up the music, cut loose and party.

On we bounce to India.  Stuffed into military garb with a comic mustache shadowing their stuff upper lip, Davis reappears as British functionary Aloysious Patterson whose role is to monitor the behavior of the Maharaja (Cheena) in the face of suspected bewitchment by his concubine Roop Rai (Khatau). Having no problem whatsoever with this arrangement is the Maharani (Arasha). Together, this trio will give this British lout a lesson which includes – I kid you not – Patterson eating his favorite bush before being forcibly disappeared. That bears repeating.  The man for whom the sight of a woman breast-feeding is nauseating must now eat…a…bush. Dominating the scene, Khatau shines again in the India interlude as a force of nature female who – everyone concedes - is “as dope as hell.”

The play’s final segment finds a sophomore (Davis) at present day Oxbridge University stirring a cauldron as she tries to find new recruits for the Oxbridge Witches Club. To her considerable good fortune, in wanders Swarn (Arasha) a curious history major who is a bit lost. Once Swarn starts tossing essences into the cauldron, evoking her ancestors both familiar and otherwise, she will become less so. Arasha delivers a crazy quilt of a self-actualizing monolog. Among the refrains - just for those who have not been paying attention this entire time – are “Everything about me is right” and “It is so nice to see me.” Message more than delivered.

WIVES continues through Nov. 1 at 120 N Judge John Aiso St., LA. 

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