What does one do with a well-to-do couple when a plague ravishes the city and all of their infected servants consequently perished? Quarantine them in their home for a month, of course. How about when a rowdy sailor and a family friend’s sickly looking daughter sneak into the building? Make it another month’s quarantine, and have all of the poor wretches cooped up together, rich and poor alike.
One Flea Spare, written by Naomi Wallace, tells the plight of Darcy and William Snelgrave, a wealthy couple (William works for the Navy Board) who have been boarded up in their home because of a plague’s infectious spread through the household.
Bunce is a “lowly” and, in the Snelgrave’s minds, a roguish sailor. Morse is the feeble looking, supposed daughter of a recently deceased associate of the Snelgrave’s. Together, they sneak into their home in search of shelter and food. After the blundering guardsman Kabe catches the pair, they buy the Snelgrave’s and themselves a whole month’s seclusion inside the crumbling, prestigious household. In this month of forced solidarity, literal and social identities are confronted and contorted. The Snelgrave’s are torn from their egotistical throne and left to face the reality of the common man’s condition.
The Snelgrave’s manor in London is the only setting featured in the entirety of the show, and the Snelgrave’s living room is the only room that these captives are seen in. All the windows in the room have been completely boarded up save for one, which Kabe uses to keep an eye on the detainees and supply them with food and other goods, which he only does according to his own whim. The home itself is devoid of luxury and furnishings, except for a moderately regal chair and another more plain chair. With a cracked, wooden floor scattered with scrapes and stains, the Snelgrave residence serves as an appropriate harbinger of the couple’s circumstances.
Both of the Snelgrave’s are covered head to toe in gaudy, illustrious gowns and suits, shoes laced and polished with bows and ornament, and hair done up despite their decrepit and secluded state. Their wardrobe serve as both a physical embodiment of their distinguished quality and as a symbolic instrumentation of the power struggle between the rich and the poor. Morse, Bunce, and Kabe’s raggedly assembled cloths and garments highlight the helplessness of their situation and complement the flashy provisions of the upper echelon quite well.
Nicholas Gennaro, CSOM ’16, and Sarah Whalen, A&S ’18, play the noble William and Darcy Snelgrave, respectively, and capture the proud, delirious nature of these two characters wonderfully. Gennaro especially knows how a noble lord handles his physique as well as how one should speak to his subordinate. His tone would shift between sounding rather accommodating to either Bunce or Morse in one scene and then diminishing towards them in the next, and at times, there did not seem to be much justification in character or plot development for the tonal difference. Whalen’s posture beautifully befitted that of a renowned lady, and she handled the conflicting desires her character experiences with an appropriately hysterical aura.
The less fortunate Bunce, played by Sean O’Rourke, LSOE ’17, and Morse, played by Maggie Sheerin, A&S ’17, exceptionally portray the scavengers and true survivors of the terrible epidemic. Bunce does a considerable amount of storytelling and O’Rourke terrifically delivers Bunce’s history with a proper reservation and authority. Sheerin steals almost every scene she is featured in, perfectly capturing Morse’s eerie demeanor. Audiences will be lucky if they walk away from the performance without nightmares of Morse, creepily soft-spoken and haunting as she is.
Kabe serves as the comic relief of the unfortunate situation and James Haddad, A&S ’17, aptly romps about in front the Snelgrave’s window, singing to himself and deceiving both the inhabitants of the manor and the crowds that come to hear him speak by selling them fraudulent remedies to the plague. One can notice Haddad’s Kabe lazily keeping watch on the home through the window, an admirable detail that reminds the audience of Kabe’s complacent yet determined guard over his captives.
The set is well designed, as the audience forms two sides of a square that the stage and home complete. Though at times this aesthetic worked seamlessly, there were instances where an action would be blocked from view of half the audience or a character’s positioning made it difficult to hear what they were saying or notice how they physically reacted to certain situations. This case of obscured sight lines did not detract too much from the overall performance, but these small distractions could add up to larger hindrances to an audience’s understanding of the story. Generally, the set design was dynamic and the actors did a nice job making use of it.
The plot development and symbolism in One Spare Flea itself can be strange or nonsensical at times. It seems to tackle societal issues other than class discrimination. And while some of these insights are well placed, others mar an understanding of a character and his or her role in the grander scheme of things. It also feels as if a few characters were not developed fully which, with such a small cast, made it seem as if little consequence befell anyone but the snotty Snelgraves. Bunce and Morse are rather simplistic characters in that they have little to no doubts or challenges that change their essence or develop them more thoroughly.
Despite these issues intrinsic to the text, the production made the most with what they had. Directed by Cara Harrington, A&S ’15, One Flea Spare is an admirable adaptation of Naomi Wallace’s play. Filled with social commentary, it pits the upper echelon of society against the lower, entrapping compelling representations of both sides under the same roof in the face of an ominously encroaching pandemic.
Featured Image by Arthur Bailin / Heights Editor
