‘The Wife of Willesden’ Review: The A.R.T.'S Production Makes Good on Its Promise

Celebrated novelist Zadie Smith’s debut play, “The Wife of Willesden,” has made its way across the pond for its North American premiere at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.). A contemporary adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” — one of the best-known selections from “The Canterbury Tales” — the play is set in a West London pub and narrated by a woman named Alvita, locally known as the titular Wife of Willesden.

Director Indhu Rubasingham — who also spearheaded the play’s debut run at London’s Kiln Theatre — creates a production that very much dedicates itself to conveying Smith’s words. Alvita, portrayed excellently by actress Clare Perkins, is largely responsible for ensuring that Rubasingham’s vision comes to fruition; she remains remarkably attentive throughout the play, maintaining deep engagement with the audience that partly justifies the director’s choice not to develop many other elements of the show.

Smith aimed to translate Chaucer’s stories for a contemporary audience, in celebration of Brent, her native London borough, named “London Borough of Culture 2020.” As an act of translation, the play is spectacularly successful. Underneath its 21st-century flourishes, Smith’s adaptation remains true to Chaucer’s original, pioneering literary form — winding, epic tales of far-flung people and places recounted in ways that can even feel unfamiliar to a modern audience.

The play’s content also delivers on its promise of modernity. Like “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” the prologue is longer than the tale itself, and most of the 95-minute running time is dedicated to Alvita walking the audience and her fellow bar patrons through her decidedly epic marital history. Each marriage story is interspersed with more tumultuous myths of criminal acts and unlikely triumphs that come together to paint the picture of her, a woman as locally famous as she is infamous.

Beyond its position as a Chaucer adaptation, the show isn’t as innovative as one might expect. Much of Alvita’s monologue is made up of commentary on heteronormative marital woes and the everlasting battle of the sexes that will not bring any new perspective to most viewers — though some still may find it to be cathartic — and the downside of the epic poetic format is that the piece sometimes lingers far too long on tired literary tropes.

What may be surprising to some audiences is the brashness with which Alvita speaks about these issues. She is confident, outspoken, and proud — traits that remain underwritten for women characters, particularly women of color. She is an unlikely figure to be seen championing feminist causes, doing so in a way that manages to strike a balance between lightheartedness and sincerity.

Due to this focus on Alvita and her lines, other aspects of the production suffer. When the show drew focus toward supporting characters, the actors displayed excellent artistic intuition and great enthusiasm — but these moments were scarce and brief, leaving audiences disappointed when those characters’ time in the spotlight was over. The design consists of two ornate, homely bars that are shockingly underutilized, making it impossible for their elegance and intricacies to resonate with the audience. Very little dialogue happens at the bar itself, with Alvita instead taking center stage. This choice, combined with the very little attention paid to the supporting characters, removed the audience from the show’s pub setting and instead led to a sense that Alvita was simply monologuing from the A.R.T. stage.

Overall, the show accomplishes what it most sets out to do: Provide a contemporary Chaucer tale and celebrate the people and culture of Brent. Both are done well, and Smith absolutely does her due diligence in staying true to the source text, down to writing her adaptation’s dialogue in verse couplet. Alvita’s words are mostly successful at shouldering the weight of the production entirely on their own, a feat that likely would not have been possible without the support of both Perkins and Rubasingham. That said, the show yearns for something more; additional development of the supporting characters, a take on the institution of marriage that hasn’t already been heard the world over, or more visual stimuli, perhaps. Of course, enhancing each of those elements comes with the price of weakening the faithfulness of the adaptation; given these constraints, Smith’s creativity and literary prowess are untouchable. As a complete play, it may have benefited from a more robust set of creative expertise.

– Staff writer Carmine J. Passarella can be reached at carmine.passarella@thecrimson.com.