When I first heard that Aditi Brennan Kapil’s new play “Imogen Says Nothing” — at the Yale Repertory Theatre through Feb. 11 — involved a woman who wanted to be in a Shakespeare play, I naturally assumed that the Imogen in question was the one from “Cymbeline,” which the Rep staged last year with women in most of the key male roles.
It turns out that Kapil is exploring a much more obscure Imogen, one who walks onstage briefly in an early edition of “Much Ado About Nothing” yet isn’t given anything to do or say. (The Rep reimagined “Much Ado” three seasons ago as “These Paper Bullets!,” and it was done at Hartford Stage in 2002 and at Long Wharf Theatre in 1999.)
“Imogen Says Nothing,” subtitled “The Annotated Life of Imogen of Messina, Last Sighted in the First Folio of William Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing,'” also riffs extravagantly on the phrase “Exit, pursued by bear” from a later Shakespeare play, “The Winter’s Tale” (which Yale Rep staged in 1987 and 2012).
The playwright has spun these bits of Elizabethan trivia into a profound meditation on women in society, gender roles in general, persecution, creativity, posterity and the nature of theater itself.
Imogen meets a theater troupe, headed by Shakespeare himself, while she is on a quest to convince a famous cartographer to rename her hometown.
She is mocked, then tolerated, then accepted into the company when one of the players is too drunk to stand up and needs support.
That’s the human drama, but there are also metaphysical and metaphorical aspects of “Imogen Says Nothing” to contend with. Bears are involved. Performing bears are seen as direct competition for Shakespearean dramas. Bears are also the threatening wild animals that they can be when provoked. They are presented as oppressed, misunderstood objects of amusement for the men who control them — much like Imogen.
“Imogen Says Nothing” contains comedy, tragedy, romance, plays-within-plays, supernatural elements and bears that look like people with sticks in their hands. The abstractions can get in the way of the plot, and vice versa, but “Imogen Says Nothing” holds together well as a sustained drama about a woman crashing a male-dominated culture.
Kapil takes a reality of late 16th-century theater — that women were legally prohibited from being professional actors — and relates it to universal struggles of women throughout history. She then ramps up the masculine superiority complex by showing more backstage hijinks than onstage theatrics. There’s lots of drinking, boasting, farting and name calling.
Kapil is as adept at creating a believable troupe of Elizabethan actors as she was in shaping a credible family of Bulgarian circus performers in her best-known play, “Agnes Under the Big Top,” which was seen at the Long Wharf Theatre in 2011. The playwright’s ability to suddenly shift styles and moods is matched by the creative, multileveled, tempo-changing staging techniques of director Laurie Woolery.
Ashlie Atkinson, who appeared in the Long Wharf’s world premiere of Laura Jacqmin’s “January Joiner” in 2013, keeps her head down and her eyes averted through most of the show, yet maintains a commanding presence. She speaks in a slow, clear careful British accent that’s reminiscent of Peter Cook’s “The Miner” sketch from “Beyond the Fringe.” Atkinson and Zenzi Williams (who plays an assortment of roles, including an amusing Royal Danish maid bitten by the acting bug) are the only women in the eight-person cast.
Christopher Ryan Grant (the aforementioned drunken sot), Christopher Geary (who looks as good in Elizabethan gowns as he did as the Queen of England in “These Paper Bullets!”), stately Thom Sesma (as the iconic Shakespearean actor Richard Burbage), Ben Horner and Ricardo Davila demonstrate various degrees of macho swagger and patriarchal cluelessness.
Daisuke Tsuji portrays William Shakespeare as an anxious hardworking scribe, on a different wavelength than the actors. Hubert Point-Du Jour, as Richard Condell (the actor who helped compile and publish Shakespeare’s First Folio) has the trickiest role: showing a special compassion, and indeed passion, for Imogen that is at odds with that of his castmates. The Condell characters also ages, matures, and has a frightening encounter that brings the play into new psychic territory.
Claire Marie DeLiso’s scenic design suggests both Shakespeare’s Globe Theater and a modern stage with scaffolding and a projection screen. Haydee Zelideth’s costumes are in that comfortable style of Shakespeare lite, where a few puffy sleeves and laced-up shirts are enough to suggest the period without having the encumber the actors with the full wardrobe.
The lighting, sound and staging likewise do more with less. There is the same openness and airiness that was used to good advantage on the Rep stage for the previous show there, “Seven Guitars.” A busier set would likely give away some surprises. And “Imogen Says Nothing,” a fierce feminist fable has plenty to say about sexism, classism, literary criticism, canonism and chauvinism, is nothing if not full of surprises. Bear with it.
“IMOGEN SAYS NOTHING” continues through Feb. 11 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. Performances are Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., with a 2 p.m. Wednesday matinee on Feb. 1. Tickets are $59-$88, $25-$30 for students. 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.
