{"id":1528,"date":"2017-09-23T14:36:37","date_gmt":"2017-09-23T13:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1528"},"modified":"2017-09-23T23:42:45","modified_gmt":"2017-09-23T22:42:45","slug":"propwatch-the-ironing-board-in-trouble-in-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2017\/09\/propwatch-the-ironing-board-in-trouble-in-mind.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the ironing board in Trouble in Mind"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The ironing board has an iconic status in the history of British theatre. What became known as kitchen-sink drama was more properly ironing-board drama. In 1956, the originality of John Osborne\u2019s Look Back in Anger<\/em> was not its frustrated hero mouthing off at an unhappy woman \u2013 so far, so drama \u2013 but that the central characters were a working-class man with strong views on Suez and a woman who, rather than looking soign\u00e9 in a cocktail frock, was occupied with the ironing in their untidy flat. Amid drifts of Sunday papers and tepid gravy, Alison Porter\u2019s laundry regime suggested life as it was commonly lived rather than what Tynan described as the Loamshire fantasy of country house farce and melodrama.<\/p>\n

In this sense the ironing board was a liberation. In another, a shackle. Alison \u2013 and later her friend Helena, who briefly takes her place in the household \u2013 do the ironing because Jimmy Porter doesn\u2019t. A woman\u2019s work, in the play, is to attend to her husband\u2019s monologues, sop up his insults, sooth his worries just as she smooths the creases. Despite all provocation, Alison doesn\u2019t slam the hot iron down and burn through Jimmy\u2019s shirts; she doesn\u2019t feel its weight in her hand and smack him across his misogynistic, goading chops. She just sucks it up, smooths it out \u2013 for such, even in the New Drama, is woman\u2019s burden.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t only in Britain that ironing boards played a decisive role. Trouble in Mind<\/em> is a long-neglected play by the long-neglected Alice Childress<\/a>. In Britain, at least, the African-American playwright is due for reappraisal (as recently noted by Exeunt<\/a>); the only work of hers I\u2019ve previously seen is the one-act Wine in the Wilderness<\/em>. The actor Tanya Moodie<\/a> championed the 1955 play for a revival that has transferred from Bath to London\u2019s Print Room<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a superbly involving gathering storm of an evening. Wiletta (Moodie), after a long but unfulfilling career playing maids and mammies, is rehearsing a serious Broadway play. She\u2019ll again play a maid and a mother, true, but one at the crux of the drama. From the glimpses we see, it\u2019s a crass play of black life in which whites snare the best lines; a drama of solemn banality about violence and shared humanity. At the climax, Wiletta\u2019s character sends her son into the arms of a lynch mob \u2013 an action which Wiletta struggles to make sense of. Throughout this overwrought scene, the director isolates her behind an ironing board, frustrating her still further. Instinctive responses are diverted by laundry. Her complexity and ambiguity are ruthlessly ironed away.<\/p>\n

Battle for integrity<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve lurked in a few rehearsal rooms<\/a> \u2013 none as toxic as this, at least not while a reporter\u2019s present \u2013 but you never forget the hierarchy. Even the most consensual, collegiate director perhaps chooses not to exercise their authority rather than shares it. Childress nails the power play of rehearsal. Her director, played with coruscating entitlement by Jonathan Slinger, is a dictator in wunderkind clothing. He operates through spite and approval, goading his actors to find a \u2018truth\u2019 which is merely a convincing cover version of convention.<\/p>\n

Wiletta aches to release the dramatic potential that mid-century casting continually denies her; but, as Moodie plays her, Wiletta\u2019s most detailed and committed performance is herself. Moodie\u2019s movement is astonishing \u2013 she shows us Wiletta constraining herself when she wants to roar, pushing down her centre of gravity when she wants to fly, embellishing every suggestion with a bobbing pantomime of self-effacement, because just standing still and speaking her mind is not an option. Moodie makes her a walking compendium of pay-me-no-mind: as if the expectation of disrespect has skewed her every sinew.<\/p>\n

Wiletta gradually finds that she can no longer endure the pacifying toolkit that has kept her bobbing along in a faux-liberal profession \u2013 the roguish smiles, the merry laugh, the self-effacing wibble at the side of the stage. This trite Broadway script may not release her artistry or even her dignity, but she fights, at least, for her integrity. But whenever thought or emotion take her away from the ironing board, the director tuts and points and sends her back. In Laurence Boswell\u2019s richly layered production, Wiletta\u2019s battle for integrity becomes a battle to move beyond that damn ironing board. It ends in a brutally painful confrontation. The board becomes a symbol of passivity, of literally knowing your place. Wiletta is finally ready to leave it behind.<\/p>\n

Couldn’t find a photo with the ironing board, but photo of Tanya Moodie is by Simon Annand<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter \u2013 @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ironing board has an iconic status in the history of British theatre. What became known as kitchen-sink drama was more properly ironing-board drama. In 1956, the originality of John Osborne\u2019s Look Back in Anger was not its frustrated hero mouthing off at an unhappy woman \u2013 so far, so drama \u2013 but that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[322,321,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-props","9":"tag-propwatch","10":"tag-theatre","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1528"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1533,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1528\/revisions\/1533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}