Moira Buffini's play Silence, winner of the 1998 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for best English-language play by a woman, provides the Roundtable Ensemble with a nice mirror for The Taming of the Shrew, the play with which it, along with Michelle Matlock's The Mammy Project, is being presented in repertory. Like Shrew, Silence is about a sassy, difficult woman in a world of men -- in this case, medieval England. A feminist fairy tale, Silence plays like Shrek without the fun.
Ymma (pronounced "Emma"), earnestly played by Kelly Hutchinson, is angry. She is sent by her brother -- we eventually learn that he raped her -- from Normandy to England to be wed; her intended is a 14-year-old boy named Silence (Makela Spielman). Silence is the Lord of Cumbria, which is located in the far north, and he's only nominally a Christian. His knowledge of the Viking language has caused England's cowardly King Ethelred (Joe Plummer) to ask his advice. A priest named Roger (Greg Hildreth) tries to advise Silence about his upcoming nuptials. Silence, you see, is troubled that his "thing" doesn't get big. He's not even sure he has one. You may have noticed that Silence is played by a girl.
When Ethelred dreams that he should have married Ymma himself, he pursues the newlyweds and their attendants, killing and torturing along the way. Ymma's cart driver, Eadric (Chris Kipiniak), also the king's executioner, hungers for her, and also, bizarrely, believes he's telepathic.
Buffini has a nice way with dialogue, but the short lines and quick scenes suggest a faster, funnier pace than we get from director Suzanne Agins, and without that spark, the observations about love, gender roles, and fear lack real impact. In the title role, Spielman projects bewilderment more than princeliness. Only Helen Coxe, as Ymma's long-suffering maid Agnes, and Hildreth are both colorful and convincing.
Presented by the Roundtable Ensemble
at the American Theatre of Actors, 314 W. 54th St., NYC.
Jan. 21-Feb. 10. Tue., Thu., and Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m.
(212) 352-3101 or www.theatermania.com.