Fred Tennant (Peterson Townsend, left) shows Charley Wilson (Jeremy Beck) a map of Australia, in Elizabeth Baker’s 1909 play Chains.
Elizabeth Baker wrote her first full-length play, Chains, at 32, and after it premiered in London in 1909, critics hailed a “new playwright of unmistakable dramatic genius.” But despite many plays that followed, success in London did not come again for Baker. And so Chains fits into the Mint Theater Company’s mission to “find and produce worthwhile plays from the past that have been lost or forgotten.” That mission is fulfilled in remarkable fashion in director Jenn Thompson’s lucid, moving, and exquisitely acted production, which feels both grounded in a specific historical and cultural milieu and yet also relevant today.
Lily Wilson (Laakan McHardy, left) with her sister Maggie Massey (Olivia Gilliatt).
The play takes place in Edwardian suburban London: the first two acts, before the intermission, are in the home of Charley (Jeremy Beck) and Lily Wilson (Laakan McHardy). The characters are neither prosperous nor indigent—the men in this play, including Charley, are primarily clerks, who commute to London banks, work as “quill drivers” all day, and live for half-days on Saturday. The role of clerk is both coveted and, for some, dreaded: if you’re lucky, it’s a life of tenuous economic security and crushing monotony. Some men accept this with quiet resignation and others, particularly the very young, with gratitude, given the alternative in a pre–welfare state society. I couldn’t help but think of E.M. Forster’s clerk in Howards End, Leonard Bast, another denizen of Edwardian London, who loses his position and falls precipitously into abject poverty.
In Chains, the prospect of losing the clerk position is the worst fate that can be imagined, and voluntarily leaving such a job—“throwing up a good position”—is almost unthinkable. And yet this is exactly what Fred Tennant (Peterson Townsend), a boarder in Charley and Lily’s home, decides to do, as he resolves to go to Australia, seeking something—if not exactly a fortune, then relief from the “grind.” His decision is the axis around which the play rotates.
At the Massey house, from left to right: Walter Foster, Maggie’s fiancé (Ned Noyes); Alfred Massey (Anthony Cochrane); and Mrs. Massey (Amelia White). Photographs by Todd Cerveris.
Charley expresses some skepticism at Fred’s plan, though not nearly as much as others, including Lily and their neighbor, Morton Leslie (Brian Owen), an exuberant voice of British conventionalism, who proclaims, “What a fool!” Beck’s Charley is seemingly settled in his life but clearly pining underneath the stiff-upper-lipped Englishness for an existence less repetitive and unnatural. His passion, cultivated in his few non-work hours, is a small backyard garden, but the soil is not good enough to really grow anything. (The play is full of this kind of symbolic meaning, yet it’s not overdone.)
While Fred’s declaration shocks almost everyone, Charley turns out to be a kindred spirit. He resolves to leave his wife (with a faint hope of sending for her later) and a secure position for an adventure in the colonies. In a lesser performer, the character’s somewhat sudden resolution to throw off the bonds of convention might seem contrived or unrealistic, but Beck so expertly imbues Charley with subtle unease from the start that this change feels completely natural.
While Lily is a voice of convention, McHardy never lets her appear foolish or uncomplicated. Lily is constrained by her gender: the thought that she would go with her husband to seek a new life isn’t realistic, so for her, Charley’s plan means not only economic precarity but separation and abandonment. Lily’s sister, Maggie Massey (an excellent Olivia Gilliatt), feels these gender constraints more consciously. She seeks to escape working in a shop by entering into a loveless engagement with a semi-prosperous gentleman; she thrills at Fred’s and later Charley’s plans, and wishes such opportunities to see the world were open to women.
Avery Whitted (left) as Percy Massey, Lily and Maggie’s younger brother, with his love interest, Sybil (Claire Saunders), whom he pursues despite warnings from Charley to not marry so young.
After the intermission, the actors execute a beautiful set change (sets by John McDermott), as the play moves to the Massey household (Lily and Maggie’s parents) for Act III, before a return to the Wilson’s home for the final act. The other Masseys, including the father, Alfred (Aquila Theatre veteran Anthony Cochrane, terrific as always), are aghast at Charley’s complaints about the misery of his work: “Do you suppose I like plumbing?” Alfred asks. “Do you think I ever did? No, but I stuck to it, and now look at me, got a nice little bit in the bank and bought my own house. Of course, I hated it, just as you do.” Despite the historical specificity of the production—down to the impeccable accents (dialect coach: Amy Stoller)—it’s hard not to hear contemporary echoes in moments like this, of the Great Resignation, for example, as more workers are questioning the value of committing their lives to a single company or career.
The play’s conclusion is quietly devastating and tense, but that raw emotion quickly gives way to gratitude to the Mint for once again resurrecting a forgotten work that deserves airing and for the opportunity to see all of these masterly performances.
Chains runs through July 23 at Theatre Row (410 W 42nd St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Tickets are available by visiting minttheater.org.
