This review was originally written for The Spy In The Stalls.
A bold, bloody musical reimagining of feminist Mary Wollstonecraft’s final days bursts with wit, defiance – and flat songs.
Animal spirits are roused, and a proto-feminist movement born, amid blood and viscera, in Mary and the Hyenas, a raucous musical re-telling of the short but impactful life of Mary Wollenstonecraft, the 18th century philosopher, writer and radical.
She died, aged 38, following complications giving birth to the girl who would grow up to write Frankenstein, and the show gives Mary the 10 days between birth and death to educate her daughter on how to be a woman in a hostile world.
The dilemma is this: give them the freedom to think and risk a life of restraint and frustration; or let them be ignorant and perhaps content with marriage and childcare.
Mother Mary inevitably chooses the former path – and sets about educating not only her own daughters but every daughter everywhere, riling the patriarchy no end and filling girls’ heads with discomforting notions of self-fulfilment and equality.
Mary the rock chick
Rock chick Mary is brought to vivid life in a tour-de-force performance by Laura Elsworthy, tear-stained, pink-haired, sharp-elbowed and forever with a rebel yell on her lips. She presents Mary not as an invulnerable ideologue, but a woman susceptible to the very traps and manipulations she sees with such clarity elsewhere.
She lives and loves outrageously, and to her very great cost.
Laura Elsworthy as Mary Wollenstonecraft
Elsworthy is supported by a five-strong backing group – Ainy Medina, Beth Crame, Elexi Walker, Kat Johns-Burke, Kate Hampson – who rise to meet the demands of a very physical production. They are forever scaling designer Sara Perks’ mountainous and boxy set, or donning hats, aprons, glasses, accents etc to create a full cast of characters. In between they belt out songs by Tor Maries (Billy Nomates).
It is a pity that the songs fail to ignite despite all the huffing and puffing on the embers. The shouty affirmations seem to be in search of a melody and the cold Human League style electro-pop doesn’t assist, draining the numbers of emotional connection. The lyrics are symptomatic of the production’s greatest failing. The sloganeering, however well meaning, is an easy go-to, filling the gaps when the story-telling flags. It is a call-and-response of diminishing returns.
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Beyond the committed cast, the strengths of director Esther Richardson’s overbusy but colourful production lie in the depiction of women conditioned to become little more than ornaments and brood mares. Humour is the most effective weapon in writer Marueen Lennon’s arsenal.
She pricks the preening pomposity of the male intelligentsia who view Mary as an oddity to be treated warily and at arm’s length. The audience responds warmly to these infrequent sprigs of wry lampooning and crave more of the same.
(“I won’t be able to apply myself with a husband,’ says one would-be anatomist. “I bet they get in the way.”)
Mary and the Hyenas is an eye-catching tribute to millions of devalued female lives – and to one of endless significance.
The production runs at Wilton’s Music Hall until 29 March, 2025.