BY ADAM MICHAEL SCHENCK
Perhaps unlike any other social movement, American feminism seems forced to argue continually for its relevancy. The history books put the movement into “waves,” such as first-wave feminism in which women argued for their right to vote.
As legal rights expand and social roles get redefined by the feminist movement’s successes, regressive social forces question why a woman’s movement is even necessary.
The dynamic causes powerful women like Katy Perry to declare “I’m not a feminist” while reaping the rewards of the movement’s successes. (She has since embraced the term and campaigned in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, who embraced the word “feminist.”) The list of women who have distanced themselves from the word “feminist” is long.
Similarly, when her novel “The Awakening” appeared in 1899, writer Kate Chopin saw her work called immoral. A Chicago newspaper called it an entry into “the over-worked field of sex-fiction.”
Chopin shares her theme of a woman’s sexual liberation with lauded male writers like Tolstoy, Ibsen and Flaubert; yet it may have hit too close to home for a Southern American woman to write on such frank matters.
Even today, many consider it scandalous for a woman to decline her role as mother and instead seek self-fulfillment.
Thus opportunities for feminism seem evergreen. Laura Leffler-McCabe, director and writer of this stage adaptation of “The Awakening” at the Southern, writes that the main character, Edna Pontellier, is “a bitch, a bad mom, an adulterer,” but that “those attributes … are what society teaches us to think about a woman who acts as she does: a woman who refuses to be told what to do.”
Well, if the poor will always be with us, and death and taxes, too, add to the list of unavoidable things the necessity for feminism. We will always be finding ways to judge women who behave dangerously, which is to say, for themselves.
My first encounter with “The Awakening” was as an undergraduate English major; my professor-mentor Dr. Anna Elsden described the novel as her favorite. Chopin creates a high bar for the Savage Umbrella company, which I am glad to say they nearly entirely meet.
Casting is to theatrical production more or less what location is to real estate. I found Emily Dussault’s challenging portrayal of Edna Pontellier emotionally moving, and Dussault commands her lines and body language.
The role of Edna is a difficult one: The audience must be made to feel sympathetic to a young woman who disowns her husband and children.
The role of her lover, Robert Lebrun, challenges actor Nick Wolf as well. Lebrun must believably fall in love with Edna while seeming virtuous as he pursues another man’s wife.
Yet another complex character is Mademoiselle Reisz, a mentor and musician who supports Edna’s artistic ambition. Alexis Clarksean finds the romanticism in Reisz and guides Edna to live outside the expectations of bourgeois society.
Director Laura Leffler-McCabe wrote the script, which is surely a herculean task, but which also could have led her to make the production unnecessarily long at two and a half hours with intermission. (My partner and I had a late night after a long wait for delicious Ethiopian food at the Red Sea on Cedar Avenue!)
Unfortunately Leffler-McCabe’s plot creates flat characters such as Edna’s businessman husband, Leonce Pontellier (Seth K. Hale). Where is Leonce’s rage upon discovering that his wife has taken not one but two lovers, and possibly a lesbian third? The character merely seeks new business opportunities off stage, while it strikes me that it is male insecurity and blind anger that necessitates feminism no matter the era.
For evidence, look no further than a group of pasty white male politicians as they celebrate signing a new limit on women’s rights into law, a sordid image we can expect in our new political reality.
In storytelling, a subplot serves to shine new light on the main characters’ reality. The talented Lauren Diesch, who shone in the lead role of Theater in the Round’s production of “Sense and Sensibility,” portrays Chloe, a girl crazy for her boyfriend Dauphnis (Aaron Henry, who also plays the town doctor).
My co-critic spouse and I could not find a purpose for Chloe and Dauphnis other than to show the reveries of young love.
Another subplot seems to merely support the way society would question Edna’s sanity. Strong stage presence Amber Davis fills the role of Adele Ratignolle, wife of Alphonse (Russ Dugger). Adele’s permanent state of pregnancy and joy in her life-giving role seems to goad Edna (I paraphrase): “Just be happy in your role as mother; I am!”
The problem here is that the secondary characters and subplots simply do not have the complexity of the lead character, who finds herself conflicted between her roles: woman, wife, mother, artist, lover. It’s not only Edna who is a “bitch, bad mom, and adulterer” as Leffler-McCabe put it—we all are!
In other words, we all inhabit the dual roles of hero and villain at the same time because we all hold within us the human condition. Motivation leads to conflict; we are creatures of need.
These peccadillos are not to say that I did not enjoy this production. The cast and crew create the Creole southern Louisiana context with aplomb, and I found myself enraptured. Lighting design from Adam Raine signals the perturbations of Edna’s soul, and costume design from Sarah French and Alexandra Gould took me back to the Delta 1890s.
The understated set design from Meagan Kedrowski allows the cast to personify the dual settings of Grand Isle and New Orleans. Sound from Nic Delcambre makes one see and feel the mosquito-enveloped lusty nights in which the action proceeds.
Additionally, live music from Delcambre, Carley Olson, and Alissa Ona Jacobsen situate this production’s feel of baroque affluence. The production is financed in part by a grant from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Fund.
We return to classic stories because their themes are timeless, and “The Awakening” fits this bill. Laura Leffler-McCabe also produced this adaptation in 2010, but much has changed in seven years. An admitted cad and lecher sits in the Oval Office, elected despite his public misogyny and predatory behavior.
Edna Pontellier’s story is one of rebellion. Feminists resist.
Influenced by Gallic (French) Catholicism, 1890s Louisiana law defined a wife as the property of her husband—an act of legal violence which traps Edna.
One of Kate Chopin’s favorite metaphors is the caged bird. The caged bird has a will to escape even if it will kill her, much like our heroine. But the cage is not of her making or her choice, and therein lies the power of her final choice.
“The Awakening” runs from March 3 to 18 at the Southern Theater at 1420 S. Washington Ave., Mpls. 55454. Information at http://southerntheater.org/.
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PHOTO CAPTION: Edna Pontellier (played by Emily Dussault) goes for a swim. Photo credit: Dan Norman
