Wildwoman: how do you make love to a monster?
21 Oct 2023

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Dahlia Katz

"How do you make love to a monster?" asks a character in Wildwoman. It is not a redundant query or a joke, all of these characters are monsters, either literally or metaphorically. And while they all do a lot of fucking and/or procreating, only the most unlikely get to make love. Of course the rest are busily scrambling for power, for control of the kingdom of France. While everyone, at one point or another, insists their ambitions are in service of France—the  king's mistress has a prominent fleur-de-lis tattoo on her thigh—there is self-interest afoot. And the main trajectory, that of Catherine, is an explicit lesson in how power seductively corrupts. Fortunately all the skullduggery is utterly engrossing, frequently hilarious, and irresistible. It is as if TMZ hired witty comedians to do an historical re-enactment and modelled it on Dynasty camp. It is, as a Kat Sandler play is wont to be, a unique and singular experience. A history lesson on psilocybin with a side order of wisecracks and slapstick.

The play that introduced me to the remarkable talent of Kat Sandler was Rock, and it was staged at the tiny Storefront Theatre with limited resources and an abundance of wit and nerve. Delicacy, Sucker, Cockfight, Liver, Bright Lights, Late Night, Mustard, Bang Bang, Featherweight, Retreat and Yaga followed, a trajectory of ambition in terms of both vision and venue. Wildwoman is presented at Soulpepper, a giant leap forward in terms of budget and resources. And prestige. While I would never accuse Soulpepper of not having an occasional edge, they are more known for classical presentations of significant plays. This works both for and against Sandler. It is delightful to see a full suit of armour applied to a significant but slight sight gag, and the lavish costumes byMichelle Tracey, and looming set full of surprises and portent by Nick Blais, add immeasurably to the atmosphere. Sandler's gift for quips, language and creative obscenities, contrast subversively with the setting to provide a disconnect that reverberates to indict today. And amplifies the comedy. Amplifies the pathos.

However Wildwoman is based on history and myth. As such Sandler is slightly constrained. While she lets her obsessions romp playfully for the most part, towards the end there is exposition that has to be dispensed with, and ostensibly actual events to be adhered to. Unless one is familiar with this particular period of French history (or has read the program notes which I advise) a few crucial plot and thematic elements are not clear. The most significant being the final massacre of the "proddies" that comes out of nowhere but is needed to create the final nail in a portrait. Which is only disappointing because until then, Sandler has been shockingly clever in her use of symbols, tying events from moment one to the final glorious and devastating reveal. Getting a well-deserved raucously wry laugh using the word 'bear.' Making us question our standards of sexual attraction. As the latest in Kat Sandler's oeuvre, Wildwoman sprawls ambitiously and could use some tightening. As a Soulpepper production, Wildwoman is an outrageous disrupter. Though the elderly couple in the row in front of me laughed with uproarious awkwardness, they did not return after intermission.

Wildwoman has two major storylines that intersect and play off each other. In one, Rose Napoli (Heart of Steel) is Catherine, an Italian royal who has been married to the second in line to the French throne. Married for the express purpose of producing heirs. Catherine wants to be involved in politics and governing, but that isn't the place for a woman. Besides the prince, Henry, is, as played by Tony Ofori (Fall on Your Knees, Bunny, Copy That), a petulant man-child who is in lust with his former tutor, now his mistress. Rosemary Dunsmore (Tom at the Farm) as Didi the mistress, is the power behind the throne and she teaches Catherine the "power of pleasure." Napoli embraces both power and pleasure and propels her character on an extensive arc that goes from naïve to monster by imperceptible degrees that become startling in hindsight. Ofori is loathsome and charming in equal measures, a self-centered villain who is nonetheless as appealing as a frat boy with abs and bland bde. Dunsmore is luminous: quivering fragility under a layer of ice and steel. 

Didi also gifts the prince with the second storyline, a wild man in a golden cage to become part of the prince's collection of "nature's strangest creations." Dan Mousseau (Prodigal) plays Pete the wild man with a hirsute gentleness and loose-limbed comic aplomb. As a literal monster, the character is more symbol than personality, but Mousseau manages to sidestep the clichés strewn in his path and breaks our hearts with lines like "I guess my fetish is people being nice to me." Pete is married off to the feisty and scarred scullery maid, Kitty, who wants to be a lady. Gabriella Sundar Singh is the comic lynchpin of the opening scenes but gains resonance as the horror of the fate of her children becomes clear. And the terrible overriding metaphor of how we are all pawns in royalty's hands, rests on her determined and defeated shoulders. Mousseau and Singh have a delicious if whimsical chemistry, one that radiates out to the rest of the cast. It is an ensemble that handles the rapid fire and overlapping lines as an expert team. And manage to make even the set changes part of the plot.

Sandler breaks the fourth wall when it suits her, or when she can't resist a gag. Death announcements are moments of high hilarity and sex, before learning "the power of pleasure," is a duty that is more farcical than erotic. But somehow that delicate balance between the laughs and genuine emotion is maintained. When Ofari follows a crowd-pleasing call and response with a bitter near death scene, we traverse both emotional states without being jarred. Mousseau and Singh have a light touch that darkens when necessary, shifting into despair with a layer of oppression that is truly frightening. Dunsmore falls the furthest but she does it with grace. And somehow that is more heartbreaking. But it is Napoli who climbs the highest. She closes both acts with exultation, the first sexual ecstasy, the last chilling. It is riveting to see Sandler bring her nihilistic/feminist/dark comic quirky vision to a larger stage, to play so effectively with an audience's expectations. We are shown a few options, none of them palatable or successful, of how to make love to a monster, but they are embedded in a master class in how to astonish, provoke, and entertain.