Playwright Liz Duffy Adams knows a thing or two about the societal adversity faced by a woman artist — problems with men and money preeminent among them. With her 2009 play titled simply Or, she found in the life of Aphra Behn (who in the 17th century worked as a spy then became the first Englishwoman to make a living from her writing) the perfect central character with which to tell a hilariously illustrative story about the ambition and grit required of a woman artist making her way in a man-made world. The play is delightfully embellished with Aphra’s aphorisms about her lot in life. Early on, for instance, Aphra says to Nell Gwynne (the Restoration stage actress and royal mistress to King Charles II):
The greatest danger for a woman, let me tell you, … is all-consuming love for a man. As a nation under a tyrant, so a woman in love: all freedom lost for the sake of a specious security that only lasts as long as a sunny day in England; that is, as long as a man loves or a tyrant pleases to be kind.
But lest Adams’ discursus on gender inequality overwhelm her play, she has baked it into a ribald romance-farce like a substantive snack inside a sumptuous meringue.
in ‘Or,’ Photo by DJ Corey Photography.
Constellation Theatre Company, now ensconced at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, has mounted, under Allison Arkell Stockman’s effervescent direction, a production of Or, that’s as deliriously witty, fast-paced, and fun to watch as one could wish. Plus, there’s Adams’ out-front throughline of advocacy for Aphra as though for Everywoman.
Following lilting Renaissance-ish preshow music (Sarah O’Halloran, sound design), the character of Aphra Behn steps out. Played with commanding grace by Veronica del Cerro, Aphra delivers a headspinning conceptual prologue to explain the modest conjunction in the title:
Our play will shortly ricochet between
A dense array of seeming opposites:
Spy or poetess, actress or whore
Male or female, straight or gay—or both …
And yet despite all seeming diff’rences
Those ors divide less than they subtly link
Next, we see Aphra in the dim light of a debtor’s prison (Ben Harvey, lighting design), where she writes a letter to the king from whom she, as a spy, is owed back pay. Then who should turn up in disguise but King Charles II himself (the extraordinarily versatile Michael Kevin Darnall preening ostentatiously in the first of three broad comic roles)? There is unbridled passion between them. The plentiful stage kissing in this production has only just begun (Sierra Young, intimacy direction).
The midnight-blue curtain parts to reveal the quaint wood-and-brick-walled lodging (Tiffani I. Sydnor, scenic design) in which Aphra is now kept by Charles. Aphra is visited by her friend, the actress Nell Gwynne, who is dressed as if to play a breeches part. (Danielle Preston’s playfully period costuming throughout is glorious.)
Aphra is under pressure to finish a play, she needs the digs, and Charles is happy to be her patron with benefits. She draws the line at penetrative sex, however (she uses the F word); she prefers “every other pleasure but that,” not least because she doesn’t want to be, as she puts it, “knocked up.”
Nell (charmingly played gamine-like by Irene Hamilton) has a very different take on the act. “I love it,” Nell says, “I could do it for hours. Did you see my Cleopatra last season? ‘O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!’ I love that line, I know just what she means.”
More soberly, Nell explicates the status of her sex: “No way around it, to be a woman is to be a whore and if god doesn’t like it why did he make it that way?”
Nell grew up in a brothel. Aphra didn’t, but she’s no naïf. Together, impulsively, they are drawn to each other with a libertine vibe that is grounded in Adams’ text and embodied in Constellation’s production with gusto.
Tellingly, that vibe is tempered with consent:
APHRA: Nature endowed us with a glorious gift for pleasure and nothing is more natural than to take all honest advantage of it.
NELL: And by honest you mean?
APHRA: Willing. The only sensual sin is to take what isn’t freely given.
That said, Aphra and Nell contribute avidly to the show’s kissing quotient.
In stark contrast to her libidinous Nell, Hamilton has an amusing turn as Aphra’s sullenly dull servingwoman, Maria. She also appears in the first scene as Aphra’s Jailer. (All the role-playing within the role-playing is a theatrical treat.)
A surprise visitor arrives, black-clad William Scot (Darnall again, now in full swagger). He’s an ex of Aphra’s, currently exiled, he knows of a plot to kill the king, and he’s horny. Farcical comings and goings ensue, multiple door slams, armoire concealments, brief boozing, bedroom quickies, even quicker costume changes… (Some of the most delightful scenes in the show are the wordless interludes of mime set to music to cover what must be frantic offstage wardrobe action. Mark Jaster, movement consultant.) Amid all this helter-skelter comes the theater manager Lady Davenant (Darnall again, in dowager drag). What began as a straightforward tale about a woman trying to survive against the odds as an artist spins insistently into rollicking mayhem, and the pleasure is ours.
When the lust settles, what emerges is the aspiring playwright’s vision, foreshadowed in the prologue, of harmony and polyamory. The sweetly optimistic ending recalls one of Aphra’s many aphorisms that linger in the mind: “I never did know how to stop loving, I only know how not to let it stop me.”
Approximately one hour and 40 minutes, no intermission.
Or, plays through June 7, 2026, presented by Constellation Theatre Company performing at Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St NE, Washington, DC. Showtimes and tickets ($45–$55 plus fees) are available online or by calling the box office at 202-204-7741.
The program is online here.
Or,
By Liz Duffy Adams
Directed by Allison Arkell Stockman
CAST
Veronica del Cerro: Aphra Behn
Irene Hamilton: Nell Gwynne, Maria, Jailer
Michael Kevin Darnall: King Charles II, William Scot, Lady Davenant
CREATIVE TEAM
Allison Arkell Stockman: Director
Tiffani I. Sydnor: Scenic Designer
Danielle Preston: Costume Designer
Ben Harvey: Lighting Designer
Sarah O’Halloran: Sound Designer
Mercedes Blankenship: Props Designer
Sierra Young: Fight & Intimacy Director
Jenna Berk: Dialect Coach
Mark Jaster: Movement Consultant
Casey Parker: Production Stage Manager
Jaida Gillespie: Assistant Director
