At the outset of “The Moors,” Jen Silverman’s audacious dark comedy having its world premiere through Feb. 20 at the Yale Repertory Theatre, imperious Agatha and her skittish younger sister, Huldey, await the arrival of a new governess, the perky Emilie, to their isolated home on the bleak moors.
“The bleak moors” is the most exact location that is divulged. We are given the idea that it is worlds away from London, not to mention anywhere else.
There are many other mysteries in “The Moors,” which swipes tropes from the novels and diaries of the Bronte sisters, and also evokes later Gothic classics, such as Daphne DuMaurier’s “Rebecca.” There is, apparently, another sibling in the house who is talked about but never seen. The manor’s maid appears to lead a double (or even triple) life. And why do the sisters require a governess anyway? There is no child, unless you count the one the maid is pregnant with when she is not pretending to be another maid, who has typhus.
The comic conundrums pile up madly as the plot thickens. Tempers and passions flare from the slightest sparks.
While the women in the house begin to divine and exploit each other’s desires, out on the bleak moors an imposing mastiff dog and a flighty Moor-Hen discourse about life, love and freedom. Their leisurely meditative utterances make them seem like a Gothic Snoopy and Woodstock pondering whether happiness is indeed a warm puppy. The word “something” comes up a lot in their wistful conversations of cautious burgeoning friendship between dog and bird. At one point, the Mastiff gets angry at the limping, grounded Moor-Hen for thinking about flying again:
“Because you hate flying,” he barks. “So if you are wanting to do something that I can’t do, that you hate, it must be because you want to get away from me.”
To which the innocent Moor-Hen responds “I just. I am something. That flies. That’s all.”
The dialogue can be boisterous and the genre parody is perverse and provocative, but there is something genuinely bleak about “The Moors.” The three strong relationships that form among these six offbeat characters hinge on concepts of dominance and submission, power and vulnerability, secret and lies. The play is about falling in love and getting lost.
As the domineering Agatha, Kelly McAndrew channels the eerie nonchalance of Jane Curtin, hiding her real self behind flat, even expressions of distaste. Birgit Huppuch plays the excitable Huldey so that her every gesture — sighing extravagantly, writing in her diary, leaving a room — is a call for attention. Hannah Cabell (whose previous Yale Rep world premiere appearances include David Adjmi’s “Marie Antoinette” and Rinne Groff’s “Compulsion”) hilariously underplays the maids Marjory and Mallory — she’s an unflappable, sour young woman in an apron. Miriam Silverman as Emilie the governess is as close to a down-to-earth character as “The Moors,” gets, but nobody achieves stability and sanity for long in the relentless psychological turmoil of this play, its mental twists and turns punctuated with swirling mists and flashes of lightning.
All these characters are more than mere comic stereotype drawn from Brönte books, but where the interplay among all these remote, misunderstood figures really takes off is in the philosophical banter between the two anthropomorphic creatures on the moors. Jeff Biehl, in a scruffy greatcoat and unruly facial hair, is a most convincing Mastiff, especially when he stretches out in the parlor room at the feet of his mistresses. Jessica Love’s Moor-Hen is equipped with goggles and a bright-eyed attitude that counters much of the dispiriting badinage that fuels the rest of this deeply emotional comedy.
Director Jackson Gay brings the same snappy staging ideas to “The Moors” that she’s brought to the Rep recently with “These Paper Bullets!” and “Elevada.” She understands the need to keep the action fast and furious without sacrificing the human element. (Or the animal one.)
The show has two main sets — the manor and the moors — which begin to morph into one during the play’s akilter closing scenes. The swift-moving scene changes from the grand, detailed parlor room (flush with paintings, animal trophy heads and dark passageways) to the grotty wilderness beyond are both an aesthetic and a technical triumph for scenic designer Alexander Woodward.
Another design who gets the exaggerated-yet-believable boundaries of this outrageous exercise in social analysis is costume designer Fabian Fidel Aguilar. He has created outfits that blend modern flash with antique ornamentation—like the modern fantasy-fiction “steampunk” genre, except there’s nothing technological or futuristic about these gloomy, overgrown moors. Call it broodpunk, and luxuriate in its wild, woolly energy.
“The Moors” is at Yale Repertory Theatre,1120 Chapel St., New Haven, through Feb. 20. Remaining performances are Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m., plus 2 p.m. matinees on Feb. 6, 10, 13 and 20. Information: 203-432-1234, yalerep.org.
