Theatre in Review: Phyl (Mint Theater Company/Theatre Row)

	Lily Ganser, Anthony Michael Martinez. Photo: Todd Cerveris

Phyl introduces us to two women you should know better: Cicely Hamilton and Lily Ganser. Hamilton is best known for Diana of Dobson's, a charming 1908 comedy staged at the Mint a quarter-century ago. (I caught it around the same time at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario; surely a revival is overdue.) A sometime novelist and feminist essayist, Hamilton, whose career spans the first half of the last century, had much to say about the fates of unmarried, unwealthy young women in the Edwardian era. Consider the plight of Phyllis Chester, consigned to domestic slavery, here defined as being a governess to the well-off Ponsonby family. Her charges, Betty and Olivia, are a blood-curdling pair; nowhere near puberty, they are rude, disobedient, and practiced at blackmail; they will most likely become pillars of the British Empire.

Phyl, looking wan and dressed in an ensemble seemingly borrowed from Morticia Addams, plods through her days joylessly, living on cold meals and poor wages. The one bright spot is a brief nightly confab with wealthy, eligible Jack Folliott, a houseguest whom Mrs. Ponsonby is trying to reel in for her daughter. Mrs. Ponsonby, who wields her nice manners like a truncheon, sees what's going on and peremptorily gives Phyl her walking papers. The firing is a blow; as much as she loathes her position, Phyl dreads returning to London and sharing sordid digs with her much older sister Kate, an office drudge for whom pleasure is entirely notional. Then Jack makes a startling proposal: Why not run off to the South of France with him?

In 1913, when Phyl was first produced, such a prospect surely seemed outrageous. But Jack may be the kindest-hearted cad in dramatic literature, and his offer proves irresistible. Phyl, tired of living for a future that seems impossibly dreary, is ready to live for the moment, putting off any thought of the consequences for another day. At least on the surface, love has nothing to do with it: He suggests that a spree is long overdue, and who is she to disagree? Suffice to say that nothing goes as planned, however: Their Riviera interlude is interrupted by the threat of scandal, topped by an out-of-the-blue reversal of fortune that forces these more-or-less lovers to review their plans for the future and each other.

Phyl's premise might have been taken up by any of Hamilton's more celebrated contemporaries, like Somerset Maugham or Frederick Lonsdale. (It is racy enough that Noel Coward might have taken a flyer on it a decade later.) These men might have portrayed Phyl as a budding adventuress. Or they might have penned a parable about the unshakable nature of the class structure. (Think of James Barrie's The Admirable Crichton.) Hamilton has no use for such outdated ideas, making Phyl's decision seem an entirely reasonable response to a society whose cold economic calculations are dressed in silken manners.

Giving startling life to the play's independent heroine is Lily Ganser, a new face who lists only one other stage credit, as an understudy in Stereophonic on Broadway. Never mind the lack of experience; the lady is equipped for bear: She captures each of Phyl's quicksilver changes of mood, stamping her foot and screaming in frustration, obediently allowing Jack to spoon-feed her dessert, reveling in her new clothing with an exultant whoop, and icily dismissing anyone who would criticize her. She makes period dialogue sound as if it were written yesterday, and she gives us full access to Phyl's mind as she plots out a response to each new twist. Her sheer electricity enlivens the play, making clear why audiences were so shocked. (Its Oxford premiere was canceled, and a subsequent tour made much of its "banned" status.) It's a remarkable debut, an unusually felicitous piece of casting even for this company, which has given a leg up to many a new talent.

Ganser is fortunate to have as her leading man Anthony Michael Martinez, who has an unusually deft way with high-comedy dialogue, a skill that, these days, seems vanishingly rare. Their rapport is immediately obvious, turning each of their scenes into an invigorating game of verbal badminton. Even as Ganser rescues Phyl from any charges of being a fortune hunter, so, too, Martinez makes Jack into something more than a reckless seducer. Together, they make their characters' gradual coming around to love into something delightful.

Britt Berke's fine handling of her stars is matched by an equally adept supporting cast. Katie Firth's Mrs. Ponsonby packs plenty of malice behind her glittering smile; when, entering Jack's hotel room unannounced, she gets the shock of her life, it is immensely gratifying. Jennifer Blood is deeply touching as Kate, who, heartbroken over Phyl's choices, tries, without avail, to rescue her from a life of sin; their final parting gives you a clue to the true price Phyl pays for her freedom. Curzon Dobell is a genial presence as the bearer of bad news, precipitating the play's final crisis.

The production design is a study in contrasts. Brittany Vasta's claustrophobic wood-paneled interior in Act I gives way to an expansive, airy Art Nouveau hotel room burnished by the sunset-into-night look of Mary Louise Geiger's lighting. Alicia J. Austin pairs Phyl's stunning finery with Kate's dusty, shabby travel outfit. (Mrs. Ponsonby's wardrobe suggests she expects John Singer Sargent to arrive with his palette at any minute.) Jane Shaw's sound design takes in a variety of effects, including surf, seagulls, and Beethoven's Minuet in G Major.

Phyl constitutes the latest entry in the Mint's by-now-unassailable argument that many of the twentieth-century's lesser-known playwrights offer a broad gallery of stimulating viewpoints, forcing us to reconsider the theatrical tradition we think we know. Both Cicely Hamilton and Lily Ganser have surprises in store. --David Barbour