The Wife of Willesden (2022)

 

Zadie's Smith dramatic retelling of Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale worked much better than I had anticipated after reading the play and reading reviews. My main concern had been the "energy arc" of the play. Like its fourteenth-century predecessor, the play starts with a bang and it doesn't have much in the way of quiet or reflective moments. I worried that the play would burn itself out. 

My fears were misplaced. 

I'd also worried the the relentlessly rhyming iambic pentameter couplets would become tedious. They did not. Smith's use of enjambment and off-rhymes buried the rhyming so well that I had to look for them.

We had a jolly group--two students, Mike, Ardis, and I--and the production was worth all the effort. 

Very much worth seeing.