History tells us there has never been a safe time to be a woman. But when abuse is instigated by the highest authorities, as seen in Henry VIII’s abhorrent, often mythologised treatment of his wives, where does that leave the everyday women trying to survive? This atmosphere of dread and the collision of Anne Boleyn’s fate with three Essex Tudor women form the backdrop of this gripping revival.
It is 1536 Manningtree and blisteringly hot, where pious and reserved Jane (Liv Hill) and lovesick midwife Mariella (Tanya Reynolds) are quietly navigating life as women in an increasingly patriarchal world, though the pair are second to the fiery Anna (Siena Kelly), a woman working in service but with, supposedly, many male suitors and lovers. As the piece unfolds, Anna’s growing, tarnished reputation and defiance threaten to ensnare all three women, with the monarch’s brutal control in London of his soon-to-be-killed Queen bleeding into increasingly patriarchal oppression in this small Essex hamlet.
Ava Pickett’s remarkable work, revived following an Olivier-nominated run for Best New Play at Almeida Theatre, brilliantly uses Anne Boleyn’s story, the accusations of infidelity and treason, as the catalyst for something much darker and much more intimate, taking the nucleus of this moment, a husband controlling, tormenting, and eventually executing his wife, and using that as the spark for an exploration into female sexuality identity and agency. The play intersects the two narratives well, with Boleyn’s fate in London bubbling in the background and being the topic of rumour and gossip, intertwined with the growth in Anna’s sullied reputation in an increasingly boiling Manningtree, where her liaisons with men cast her as a dangerous threat among the citizens, hypocritically calling for moral decency.
As Anna, Kelly is deliberately brash and unashamedly honest, bringing to the fore with aplomb a complex woman navigating her place when her desires are at odds with what is accepted. Anna’s character is defined by her sexuality, and while the play leans into this with her frantic, frenetic encounters with Richard (Oliver Johnstone), Lyndsey Turner’s direction works hard to place Anna as a woman who is still second to a man’s pleasure during these moments, evoking a vulnerability that subtly contradicts her quick wit and harsh putdowns.
Alongside Kelly, Reynolds’ Mariella, and Hill’s Jane are two characters that form more conventional, albeit still cruelly treated, women of the time. As Mariella, Reynolds is strong in creating a character who is constantly balancing the needs of herself and her friends with what society accepts. The wiser of the three, her role as a midwife becomes complicated when delivering the baby of William (George Kemp), leading to the play’s thrilling and devastating conclusion. Meanwhile, as Jane, Hill’s characterisation captures the simple naivety of country girls, not hardened to life, and love’s experiences in the same way Anna and Mariella are, though her new marriage is desperate and violent. Jane is downtrodden and keen to please, which makes her involvement in the play’s ending so impactful.
Pickett’s depiction of the male characters is a little more one-dimensional and predictable, but this ironically enhances rather than detracts from the play. 1536 is all about the marginalisation and objectification of women, a Tudor-based metaphor for modern times, and so the reduction of the male characters to their flaws serves well in enabling the lead three to be, rightly, the central focus.
It is also a production impeccably designed. The trio are gowned in typical Tudor dress for working-class women, which makes sudden changes to this violent and stark, while Max Jones’ set design, a tree and some shrubs, evokes a barren landscape where the dreams and aspirations of Anna, Mariella and Jane are lost to their bleak reality. Meanwhile, Jack Knowles’ beautiful lighting choices, enhanced by reds and oranges bouncing off the white back wall, help to elicit the sense of horror and dread that looms over the trio, a symbol of the stifling heat and of the oppression the three suffer.
1536 is a remarkable feat of theatre, where its 100 minutes are packed full of tension, terrific character work, and a morbid sense of horror as the three women’s lives coexist with their soon-to-be beheaded Queen. Compelling and captivating, Ava Pickett’s script uses one of Britain’s darkest royal moments to shed light on the sexual politics and identity of women today, where, troublingly, the same contentions and ideologies are voiced half a millennium apart. A must-see.
