Dark passions emerge in ‘The Changeling’

Danielle Scott and Musa Gurnis in The Changeling. [Claire Kimball]

By David Siegel

Sex, sin, retribution, and vengeance are only starting points for Brave Spirit Theatre’s amped-up production The Changeling at the Lab Studio Theater in Alexandria.

The Changeling is a passionate, 400-year-old Jacobean drama by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. This dark tale gains traction speeding into Act II, when inflamed, cunning, manipulative characters take cracks at gaining control of their futures. And some have good reasons for their behavior.

Right off, true to the Urban Dictionary definition of scrappy – “seemingly small and unthreatening but shockingly able to kick your ass and anyone else’s” – Brave Spirits has produced another work of stimulating, not-for-the-timid theater full of verse and violence.

With robust direction and dynamic casting by Charlene Smith, The Changeling is a broadside, not a satire. It is both character and context driven. The play’s characters live in a world of male hegemony, not 400 years ago, but in a more contemporary time. It is male power that female characters work at resisting, if not toppling.

What is The Changeling about? There is a youthful, outwardly pure young woman named Beatrice (Danielle Scott). At the outset of the play, she quickly becomes infatuated with a handsome young traveler, Alsemero (Ben Peter), whom she meets in a church. In neck-snapping speed, they decide to marry.

If she marries Alsemero she will be disobeying her father (Charlie Cook), who wants her to marry an older, staid man (Steve Lebens). “I should have power then to oppose my loathings,” says Beatrice with conviction. So far, rather conventional.

Then in walks Beatrice’s servant. DeFlores, whom the playwrights envision as a man. Smith has the DeFlores character, still identified as a male, played by a female actor, Musa Gurnis.

As DeFlores, Gurnis is a total magnetic danger. She is full of swagger and alpha confidence. She is one dominant being for whom it would be easy to fall under a spell. Except when it comes to Beatrice.

DeFlores is smitten with Beatrice and sets sights on winning her heart. “Her fingers touched me! She smells all amber.” DeFlores goes on. “I know she hates me, yet cannot choose but love her: No matter, if but to vex her, I’ll haunt her still; Though I get nothing else, I’ll have my will.”

As Act I proceeds, Beatrice has a boring, older male fiancée, a young man who makes her quiver whom she wants to marry, and a servant in hot pursuit of her. What a conundrum.

An idea pops into Beatrice’s mind. She asks DeFlores to take care of her intended bridegroom. Hoping to gain favor, DeFlores obliges. When Beatrice tries to pay him with money, Beatrice learns that is not what DeFlores has in mind. There is a more precious repayment to be taken – what no one has ever taken from Beatrice before.

I will go no further in divulging what happens next. Needless to say, don’t expect sunshine and rainbows.

The Changeling is far from all darkness. There is a parallel plot full of slapstick with puppets that takes place in an asylum. This is a world full of lunacy where males still dominate, or so they think.

Brave Spirits’ The Changeling is enhanced with songs that add an expressive pop dash, such as “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” by Martha Wainwright, with this lyric “Oh, I wish I wish I wish I was born a man”; REM’s “Everybody Hurts”; and the Beatles “Dear Prudence.”

There were a few bugs on opening night that likely will be fixed quickly, including some audio issues and flat performances.

Brave Spirits’ pugnacious The Changeling is a rare, full production of a Jacobean tragedy shaped by Smith into an admirable tale worthy of today’s headlines (including one bit of violence that has taken on a new sense of realism given recent events in a certain consulate in a distant land). Take it in for its shock and awe. And come to know “in death and shame my partner she shall be.”

Note: The show is not recommended for children under age 16.

Where and when: The Changeling runs through Nov. 18 at the Lab Studio Theater at Convergence, 1819 N. Quaker Lane, Alexandria. Tickets can be purchased online.

The piece is based on a review by David Siegel in D.C. Theater Arts.