FringeReview UK 2024
Sanctuary
Christine Rose and Marlisa Doubell
Genre: American Theater, Drama, Feminist Theatre, Fringe Theatre, New Writing, Political, Scratch Performance, Theatre, Tragedy
Venue: Seven Dials Playhouse
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
February 2025. Three women shelter in the basement of one of their houses in formerly liberal Portland, Oregon. Outside marauding ‘patriots’ aka Proud Boys and other far-right groups fight a liberal population in retreat, as the president everyone feared would get back in, has done so. Welcome to the world of Christine Rose’s Sanctuary, a rehearsed reading of her first play given at the Seven Dials Playhouse, directed by Elena Rigoni on May 22nd.
Christine Rose as dramatist is a name we’ll be hearing, with luck, very soon.
Written by Christine Rose, Directed by Elena Rigoni. Producers Christine Rose and Marlisa Doubell. A rehearsed reading at the Seven Dials Playhouse.
Review
February 2025. Three women shelter in the basement of one of their houses in formerly liberal Portland, Oregon. Outside marauding ‘Patriot Boys’ and other far-right groups fight a liberal population in retreat, as the president everyone feared would get back in, has done so. Welcome to the world of Christine Rose’s Sanctuary, a rehearsed reading of her first play given at the Seven Dials Playhouse, directed by Elena Rigoni on May 22nd.
Why are they so angry? “I want to be a dictator” Cassie (Laura Shipler Chico) quotes. “Only for a day” defends Amelia (Laura Kay Bailey) , her friend of 40 years. Both 55, they’re politically at opposite extremes, as Amelia’s husband and son are out there; were at the January 6th insurrection too. Only Amelia doesn’t call it that.
In the middle is their friend Val (Marlisa Doubell), terrified that kind husband Edward, away at a conference, mightn’t make it back to rescue them.
As Narrator and various Men Dominic Weatherill underscores, the heavy tread of history is marching up to their door. Patriots rove streets, on the lookout for women. Amelia thinks they’re good men “just letting off steam” whereas Cassie, alarmingly well-versed in male violence, judges everything at its bleakest. Is she being overly judgemental?
Set in a dystopia only months away – a brave move, but it can be pushed back – Rose has only pushed a few more volume controls on the political noise slowly engulfing the US.
Shipler Chico’s character Cassie is the one many will identify with: sharply-informed via her phone, feminist, unillusioned, a survivor, she’s a natural leader, despite Amelia’s loud assertions. It’s a consummate performance of containment, of trying not to panic others, suppressing fears and knowing that voicing them does no good. William Empson’s “courage means not frightening others” comes to mind. Cassie filters information, though is honest with essentials. It’s already a performance: Shipler Chico centres the production.
Bailey is a virtuoso, her extremes and denials beautifully registered. Where with Shiper Chico you see doubt and reserve register on her face, Bailey’s all trumpet and outrage, but also as disasters pile up, able to draw back into an extraordinary flinch as her world falls apart. What’s so vivid in Bailey – Amelia’s denials and bland justifications – is her brilliance with a topspin of bravura that tells us it’s going to take a different direction.
Doubell’s Val is from the outset the peacemaker, but finds a voice of tremulous tenderness and increasingly a panicky reaching-out just as options narrow. Doubell allows gradations of fright to war against her instinct to reassure.
Weatherill reads in all cues including texts both Cassie and Val send: Val to her husband, Cassie to the potential rescue groups. Amelia’s husband switches his off as he doesn’t want his perfect wife “nagging”, another sign things aren’t as Amelia paints them. Even her name: once Amy. Cassie continually slips back into “Amy” and has to correct herself. Finally, circumstances altered, she gives up on the carapace of false identity. That’s when Amy has too.
Weatherill’s also chillingly evocative with Rose’s authentic Proud Boy language. And indeed multiple voices off.
Actors are all well-known and had eight hours of rehearsals. Everything is as good as a radio play already. Credit must also go to Elena Rigoni for pulling this production taut.
This is a play of two hours with a five-minute interval, so would run for over two hours 15 normally. It never seems overlong, though as we cut to what we guess might be a horrifying climax to Act One. perhaps a few “telling” elements in the first act might be telescoped. Rose has proved her facility for quick metaphors to illustrate such phrases as “boiled frog”. There may be one or two more opportunities.
What comes later needs to be seen. How could Rose top the end of Act One? She does, as what David Wood terms ‘suddenlys’ build to a climax taut as a wound clock. For once the cliché ‘shattering power’ is right. This shatters assumptions and with deft strokes Rose elides the women’s considered options into one swift action. This is a more theatrical experience than several nights spent in the stalls.
This is an urgently prescient hyper-articulation of – as Auden puts it – the “terrible future that may just have arrived.” Rose, who’s lived in Portland and written five novels as well as seven academic and technical books, proves as natural a dramatist as writer elsewhere.
This should be further produced, and a theatre like Jermyn Street might prove the ideal venue. There might have been a Q&A after, as enough of the audience were around; but this writer for one didn’t think of it either. Christine Rose as dramatist is a name we’ll be hearing, with luck, very soon.
