Brighton Fringe Review: THE CITY OF LADIES, Rotunda Theatre Brighton - Squeak

“Now how are you with the spade?”

The City of Ladies, described as an “offbeat comedy exploring the radical ladies of the past through puppetry, drag, and special hats,” has quite the unique premise. Two muses, Ladies Rectitude and Reason, visit a medieval woman named Christine de Pizan, who is struggling with what it means to be a woman in the 15th century. The storyline of the show is based on the plot of The City of Ladies itself, with Christine being visited by Ladies Reason, Rectitude and Justice, who give the woman the mission of building, as one might guess, the City of Ladies. 

The show is mostly told from the perspective of Rectitude and Reason (apparently Lady Justice has a terrible hangover and won’t be participating in the construction of the City of Ladies), who are best friends and have a tendency to speak in a modern, Gen-Z style. The attempt to combine 15th-century feminism with modern memes is admirable, but is not really cohesive. In one scene involving Jesus, a performer comes out on a pink penny board wearing Elton John-esque sunglasses, only communicating through mime, but the character is only seen for a few minutes before we move on to the next section. 

Unfortunately, The City of Ladies struggles to find its footing, as it appears to be a mix of comedic sketches and a lecture that one might expect from a history course in university. Slides are used to show different locations and to give some information on different characters, but are mostly used for either a lot of information or for comedic effect, rarely combining the two. There are several times when the two performers are reading facts and figures from cards, with the information quickly being abandoned for some joke that’s unrelated to what the audience has just been taught. There is also a strange side-plot where one of the muses is trying to turn the City of Ladies into an Airbnb with little explanation. 

One of the more interesting aspects of The City of Ladies is that it doesn’t only focus on Christine de Pizan and other medieval women as a whole. Instead, the Muses take Christine and the audience on a journey through history, showing examples of other powerful women who came after those like Christine and Julian of Norwich. This culminates in the muses deciding who is going to join the City of Ladies through the “Wheel of Fates,” which for some reason has a reference to the 1888 Matchgirls’ Strike.

Audience members are invited to spin the wheel and open an envelope to see which of the six influential women shown on the screen have won the chance to join the city, with one of the muses reading off fun facts about them. It’s quite bizarre and goes a bit against the concept of all women being welcomed into the city that is emphasis in the original work. 

There are several fun moments in the show, including a symposium that Sappho hosts with fellow women-loving-women writers, including Emily Dickinson, as well as an impressive lip-syncing rendition of Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” with one of the performers and two puppets taking on the roles of the Brontë sisters. Most of the other jokes, however, tend to just be silly for the sake of being silly without any real meaning or plot development behind them. 

The City of Ladies is a strange work that feels like a mix of a school presentation and a fun skit between friends, making for a bit of a confusing hour for audience members. The concept of having the muses assist Christine de Pizan in building her City of Ladies, however, has potential and I hope to see a more developed production in the future. 

The City of Ladies ran at the Brighton Fringe Festival from 7 - 26 May.