Ironmistress
Halcyone Productions at Heartland Studio Theatre
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This production is definitely pleasurable, in part because it’s honest. I’m not even that keen on the Ironmistress script, and this still qualifies as the most satisfying theater experience of 1994 for me. Ironmistress, a rather odd one-act, offers an impressionistic portrait of a real figure from the 19th century. Martha Darby is a middle-aged, upper-class British woman who owns and operates a steel mill circa 1840. Given her position, she and her daughter Little Cog are removed from the mainstream of English society: their passions are ignited more by red-hot steel than by needlepoint. They also share bravado, a lust for power, and vibrant imaginations, as we see when the two of them amuse themselves throughout a single night with games and stories. But their imaginations and memories often enflame their emotions, which flare up only to be cooled by a sobering dose of reality, the shadowy frame around this action established by British playwright April De Angelis. The sobering reality is that Little Cog is to be married the next day to a wealthy man, and she is ill equipped to live in his world. She would rather study mathematics, make machines, and run the furnaces–but she can’t.
Her situation could easily be interpreted as tragic, but director Christine Hartman simply presents the story as straightforwardly as possible and lets the audience come to their own conclusions: her quest for honesty is at the heart of this production’s integrity. Halcyone Productions makes no bones about being a feminist theater group, but unlike many politically motivated ensembles, this one graciously refrains from telling us what to think. Instead, they go all out to give us something to think about.
This is Rebeck’s (and director Steve Guichelaar’s) clever twist: Spike Heels is about love among the 20-somethings. Like those classic movies Reality Bites and Singles, it tries desperately to give a voice to people who have deliberately cut out their larynxes–and ends up sounding hollow and lifeless. Try these lines at home with your friends. He: “Are you OK?” She: “Yes. No. I don’t know.” He: “What happened at the office?”
