The term “handbagged” seem to have sprung from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s habit of beating hapless political opponents into submission. She didn’t actually use her handbag to pummel the menfolk, but she might as well have filled it with rocks and done so.
In Moira Buffini’s Handbagged, at 59E59, we get not one but four handbag-wielding forces: two named Margaret Thatcher and two named Queen Elizabeth. Yes, two each. Younger renditions, from when Thatcher first moved into 10 Downing Street in 1979, referred to in the program and script but not on stage as Liz (Beth Hylton) and Mags (Susan Lynskey); and an older pair, from after the combative Thatcher was ejected in 1990, named Q (Anita Carey) and T (Kate Fahy).
No, this is not one of those episodic plays where we see one pair in the first act and the other in the second; or where they alternate as the sands of time flash forward and back. Buffini sets them onstage all at once, bolstering and buffeting and contradicting not only their opponent but their own alter ego in a dizzyingly funny manner. “I never said that,” huffily claimed, is a repeated refrain. If this sounds to you like grounds for comic mayhem, you’ll likely be delighted with what transpires.
[Read Michael Sommers’ ★★★ review here.]
There are two men on hand to fill out the rest of the cast, one younger (Cody Leroy Wilson) and one not as young (John Lescault). They play 17 servants, husbands, ministers, politicians, and whoever else Q and Liz and T and Mags conjure up. Most astonishing is Wilson’s impersonation of Nancy Reagan, with a handbag of her own, and I aver you’ve never seen a Nancy Reagan like this!
Buffini and director Indu Rubasingham—the latter is the artistic director of the Tricycle Theatre in the northwest London borough of Kilburn, which has since been renamed the Kiln—had a grand success with the play in 2013, which went on to a West End transfer at the Vaudeville and a U.K. tour. Fahy, as the elder Thatcher, played the role on the tour. She is, incidentally, the long-time partner and spouse of actor Jonathan Pryce. The present production comes from the Round House Theatre in Bethesda, Md., with director Indu Rubasingham and her design team recreating their work. (Richard Kent’s set is missing the vertical, white framing pieces, in the form of a skeletal Union Jack, used at the Tricycle and presumably the Vaudeville.)
The success of this play depends, in great part, on the cast being able to deliver the intricately woven material. This group is mostly American, the exceptions being the older pair. The four handbaggers are equally excellent, to the extent that the Maggies and the Elizabeths seem to merge together. Much fun comes from the men in their jumble of roles, most especially including Wilson’s Nancy Reagan and Lescault’s Denis Thatcher.
While Lady Thatcher died six months prior to the 2013 premiere of Handbagged, Buffini’s play originated in 2010, when Thatcher was still something of a public enemy. That was a 30-minute sketch with the two Thatchers, included in the Tricycle’s Women, Power & Politics. Most of the characters in this play are long gone (although Elizabeth, her consort, and Mr. Murdoch still reign); so much so that some American playgoers might not quite follow the discussion. As an antidote, a certain amount of explanatory dialogue seems to have been added. There are also a few jabs which reflect on the current U.S. president, which are either new or remarkably prescient.
When reviewing the original production of Handbagged at the Tricycle in 2013, I said “Let us hope that the folks at 59E59’s Brits Off Broadway series brings it to us, lock, stock and handbag.” Here it is now on 59th Street, and for discerning audiences most welcome.
Handbagged opened June 12, 2019, at 59E59 and runs through June 30. Tickets and information: 59e59.org
