THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND – REVIEW OF 2024 SHAW FESTIVAL PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The House That Will Not Stand is a play by Marcus Gardley about the fate of women of colour in Louisiana in 1813. The date is important because that is when France transferred the territory to the United States. Women of colour were relatively well off under French jurisdiction. Some were part of the plaçage where a woman of colour could become the concubine of a white man and even marry one and live much better than slaves. The system was complicated, and I am in no position to explain it fully. 

Gardley’s 2014 play deals with Beartrice Albans (Monica Parks) a plaçage whose wealthy white husband has just died leaving her, and her three daughters as well as their Negro servant with an uncertain future under the American system.

When the play opens in the Jackie Maxwell Studio, we see a man lying dead and a well-dressed woman entering the stage laughing her head off. The dead man in Beartrice’ s lover Lazare and the laughing woman is La Veuve (Nehassaiu deGannes). Beartrice is concerned about her position, the future of her three daughters and perhaps the slave Mikeda (Sophia Walker). The latter is a hyperkinetic and comic person who claims that she is a diviner and is able to have the soul of Lazare transferred to her.

The real concern, as I said, is the future of her daughters and the question is can they find decent plaçage positions for them. There is great ball where young girls go accompanied by their mother and seek a good placement. The daughters Agnès (Deborah Castrilli), Maude-Lynn (Rais Clarke-Mendes) and Odette (Ryann Myers), plot to find a way of going to the great ball against their mother’s wishes in search of their fortune.

 (l to r): Rais Clarke-Mendes, Ryann Myers and Deborah Castrilli 

in The House That Will Not Stand. Photo by David Cooper.

In the meantime, Makeda practices her voodoo and claims (not seriously) that Lazare’s spirit has entered her. No everybody believes that.

The central issue and pursuit is freedom. For Beartrice it is the search for a paper signed by her “owner” grating her freedom. Her daughters need to find a wealthy man to give them plaçage in all its variations. After all that is the purpose of the ball, a kind of shopping mall for young women that is not entirely clear. Makeda is perhaps more eager for freedom because she is a slave. The daughters argue and scheme for a placement and one of them finds one only to lose him when one of her sisters takes him away from her.

In the end Makeda gives up her savings for Beartrice to buy the house and subsequently grant Makeda her freedom.

The play has seven characters, all women except for Lazare who is a dead man.

Louisiana in 1803 presents a fascinating historical moment. Some of the details ae abstruse and difficult to explain in a play and the position of women of colour (and there are gradations) and their treatment by the French and uncertainty and fear of what awaits them under the Americans cannot be made clear because of its complexity.

The play takes place during a 24-hour period on a Sunday in Faubourg Treme, New Orleans, Louisiana. Gardley tackled a great and complicated subject that needs more details and substance. As presented it did not engage me and what is worse by the time it reached the final curtain, I started wondering who and why the play was chosen in the first place.

In Philip Akin it has one of the best directors around and one cannot complain about the quality of the acting despite the muddled script. The Huse That Will Not Stand has been produced by university theatres and professional groups including off Broadway, but it does not seem to have received a major staging anywhere. Even the Shaw Festival is producing it in the small Studio Theatre. A disappointment.
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The House That Will Not Stand by Marcus Gardley will run in repertory until October 12, 2024, at the Jackie Maxwell Studio Theatre as part of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario.  www.shawfest.com.

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press.