Joe Candelora (left) plays Horace Melville, and Dexter McKinney II is Harry Chatteris, a young politician romantically entangled with a mermaid, in Neith Boyce’s The Sea Lady. This photograph and banner by Barry Jin.
In 1930, the theater artist Neith Boyce was commissioned to adapt H. G. Wells’s 1901 fantasy novel The Sea Lady for the stage. After five years of work, and with a Broadway production planned, Wells’s agent rescinded the rights to the novel, and the play was never seen. For decades the manuscript resided at Yale’s Beinecke Library, until Boyce’s biographer sent it to the Metropolitan Playhouse, which is currently staging the play’s world premiere under the direction (and design) of the company’s artistic director, Alex Roe.
Melville debates Harry’s relationship with the mermaid with Harry’s aunt, Lady Poynting-Mallow (Kim Yancey Moore). Photograph by Alberto Rivera.
The story of The Sea Lady is one of dreams come to life—or nightmares, depending on the perspective—and the disruptions that poses to a late-Victorian household. A mermaid, later dubbed Miss Doris Thalassia Waters (Elisabeth Ahrens), washes ashore on the beach in front of the southern English summerhouse of the Bunting family. After some initial surprise at the creature’s demanding nature, the family matriarch, Mrs. Bunting (Laura Pruden), is focused on how to introduce Miss Waters into society and isn’t bothered much by the oddity of the situation: “And she really has—a tail?” her cousin, Mr. Melville (Joe Candelora), asks. “Not a big clumsy tail,” Mrs. Bunting explains. “You know—sort of divided—not so different really from—other people.” Mrs. Bunting’s plan is to dress Miss Waters to disguise said tail, and have her taken around in a wheelchair.
Mr. Melville is summoned by Mrs. Bunting as a consultant on all matters, and much of the play consists of various characters explaining their feelings to him and receiving his conventional wisdom in return. Mrs. Bunting’s son, Fred (Alex Brightwell), and his fiancée, Mabel Glendower (Erin Leigh Schmoyer), are rather empty-headed nonentities, in contrast to Mabel’s houseguest, her wealthy half-sister, Adeline (Ursula Anderman). Adeline is committed to a useful life of helping the poor, via the impending political career of her fiancé, Harry Chatteris (Dexter McKinney II). Harry is a lighthearted playboy who finds Adeline serious and unromantic: “But, Adeline, our marriage isn’t going to be all work, is it?” he asks.
Ahrens’s mermaid is a fine mix of charm with a touch of something sinister, which is picked up on by Melville, when he compares her to a Siren, earning an intense, prolonged stare. Reference is made to other mermaid-like stories, such as Ondine, and Miss Waters’s search for a soul, and there is some playful banter about life under the sea compared to life in England. It doesn’t hurt in winning people over that she comes equipped with a chest of priceless jewels. But her real motive is Harry: she saw him in Hawaii on a romantic tryst with a woman and then in a fight with, presumably, the woman’s husband. For some reason this behavior has compelled her to search for him. Unsurprisingly, Harry is smitten with Miss Waters, and the play’s tension, such as it is, is whether he will return to Adeline or follow desire into Miss Waters’s arms (and, presumably, a watery death).
The production uses period costumes (designed by Anthony Paul-Cavaretta), and the principal characters speak in aristocratic English accents. Some actors double (or triple), which is handled with clarity in both direction and voicing. Some of the performers embrace a comical, farcical vein, while others attempt naturalism. The former register seems right for the play: Pruden’s rolling R’s and over-the-top obliviousness work well, and Kim Yancey Moore’s entrance in the second act as Harry’s imperious and snobbish aunt is an injection of life and humor. The play itself is overlong and repetitive—the production runs nearly three hours—and could have been cut and streamlined substantially without any real sacrifice.
Melville with his cousin, Mrs. Bunting (Laura Pruden), who hopes to introduce the mermaid into society. Photograph by Wendy Katzman.
Miss Waters’s mantra is “there are better dreams,” positing the world of 1900 England as a dream from which one may awake. Despite repeating this over and over, the play doesn’t quite make a coherent critique. It isn’t a dissection of class or gender in the period and doesn’t work as a cri de coeur for sexual liberation or as a drawing-room satire. Miss Waters doesn’t represent a better world: she represents an alluring sexual object for an insubstantial and unappealing young man. Adeline, who is focused on housing for the poor and doesn’t want to live a life of useless luxury, is depicted as frigid. Whatever Wells’s or Boyce’s views on free love and conventional morality, what Harry chooses is, essentially, a tumble in the seaweed with Miss Waters, which makes for rather shallow dramatic stakes.
The Sea Lady runs through Oct. 30 at the Metropolitan Playhouse (220 E 4th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. on Thursday–Saturday; matinees are at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are available by visiting metropolitanplayhouse.org.
