Power hungry

Janet Clear, Isthmus

The phrase “peaceful transfer of power” occupies a lot of space in our collective consciousness these days, in ways we never would have expected just a few years ago. That’s in evidence in American Players Theatre’s current production of The Virgin Queen Entertains Her Fool, playing in the Touchstone theater through Sept. 19.

Directed by Aaron Posner, the strong cast encourages us to see chaos in the face of change at the highest levels of government as just the latest episode in the continuum of history. The Virgin Queen Entertains Her Fool unfolds to show a monarchy on the brink.

Staging is simple: The action takes place in the queen’s spare but luxuriously appointed bedchamber. A window to the square below is suggested by lighting alone. Sound effects are used sparingly but effectively, letting us in on both the characters’ internal emotions and external perceptions. The small cast features Tracy Michelle Arnold as the dying but beloved queen of a fictional domain, and James DeVita, Josh Krause and Nancy Rodríguez as intimate members of her court.

Playwright Michael Hollinger writes in the program notes that he creates “Here-and-Now plays, and There-and-Then plays.” The Virgin Queen Entertains Her Fool is a “There-and-Then play,” which uses a fictional place and time (sometime in the Renaissance, somewhere in Europe) to help shine a light on what is happening in the here-and-now. We see a strong female leader, who although she has attained her office via birthright, has nevertheless had to perpetrate elaborate cover-ups in order to keep her lifetime position. The moniker “Virgin Queen” has endeared her to her subjects, but now, in her dying days, she faces a difficult choice. With no clear heir to the throne, it is up to her to anoint a successor. But every choice she has in front of her would generate a ripple of consequences. As the Queen’s last breath draws ever closer, her life and those of her closest associates will unravel in unexpected ways.

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