The Busy Body (1709) is one of the many plays written by Susanna Centlivre. Centlivre is often referred to by critics and historians as the most successful female writer on the 18th-century English stage and yet, to most of us, her name means nothing. The times that The Busy Body has been performed in the past hundred years can be counted with one hand.
The team at Oxford’s Creation Theatre, in partnership with Orange Tree Theatre, are here to revive Centlivre’s play for 21st century audiences. With only four days of rehearsal, little-to-no staging and performing script-in-hand at a non-theatrical venue (St. Hugh’s Mordan Hall), the cast and crew of The Busy Body had no easy task and yet, there was hardly one person in the room not taken by the irresistible charm of both the text and the performance.
Centlivre’s play is both hilarious and biting. Following two young women and their attempts at escaping controlling and abusive guardians, The Busy Body has a lot to say not only about the lack of female freedom but also about the contractual nature of personal relationships when everything from marriage to guardianship revolves around money and legal documents. Introducing an element of chaos to the plot, is the character of Marplot – the titular “busy body” – whose sole aim is to find out his friends’ secrets in order to participate in their plots. Unfortunately for his friends, Marplot is a walking disaster and the more he tries to help, the more problems he causes.
When I found out this was going to be a script-in-hand performance I was slightly sceptical of the barrier that that would potentially raise between actors and audience. However, the performance lived precisely off of audience interaction. Zak Ghazi-Tobarti’s hilarious Marplot, jogs through the audience in quest for secrets and at one moment makes to turn into one of the audience rows, chiding the elderly couple sitting at the end for blocking his path: “This is a path!” At another point, the actor loses his place in the script and turns it into one of the funniest moments in the performance by announcing: “ I am going to… I am going to read the script!”.
All jokes aside, it is clear that the creative team embraced pushing the boundaries of theatrical etiquette and our relationship with staged performance, all while giving the audience a good laugh. A key example of this is when Boadicea Ricketts’ energetic Miranda in a classic aside asks the audience: “What should I do?”, and when faced with no reply insists: “No, really, what should I do?” Yes, it is a comedic moment but it also highlights the strange trope of having characters request advice to a nameless mass that never replies. There is also no backstage, so when characters exit they merely sit down around the stage area or stand behind the audience. Although this is obviously due to the limitations of the space, it also constantly reminds us that we are watching a piece of theatre. Similarly, at one point, Kevin Golding’s relentlessly strict Sir Jealous Traffik, is supposed to beat Marplot. He flings his script at Marplot and one of the actors stands up from their seat and bangs two bats together to make a slap-like noise. Again, this is undoubtedly a decision employed due to lack of time. However, it is interesting because it deconstructs the principles of a ‘realist’ stage slap and exposes the technique behind it. This constant exposure of the motions of theatrical performance is key because it parallels the play’s own exposure of everyday performances and of a society that sustains itself on performative exchanges: performances of gender, of friendship, of love, of identity, of nationality, of power, of innocence and of wealth.
Equally, although the tone of the performance is undoubtedly comedic (I doubt anyone will forget Don Diego Barbinetto’s ‘Spanish’ attire anytime soon), there are moments of inescapable weight in the performance. There was a palpable sensuousness and gravity to the scene when a masked Miranda talks to her unknowing lover Sir George Airy, and he – desirous to know her identity – threatens to unmask her. Her reluctance is beautifully played by Ricketts, whose performance makes it clear that while Miranda fears the discovery of her identity, she perhaps fears the vulnerability of surrender to another above all.
The Busy Body is an extremely entertaining play with a wealth of interest. It is to be hoped that the success of this performance will encourage producers to take more chances on staging Centlivres’ work and that of other largely forgotten female dramatists.
