Deputy Arts Editor Avery Baumel reviews Catalina Beltrán’s masterful directing thesis.

The first impression that Meg left upon its audience was auditory, in the form of a playlist of medieval reimaginings of several popular songs (notably, an instrumental version of Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar”). The space, too, was immediately immersive thanks to scenic designer Cecelia Shin, who created a system of platforms and stairs that connected the theater’s two catwalks to the stage floor. There, rugs, books, and papers created a cozy study. Absurdity and serenity, humor and solemnity: that first impression proved remarkably accurate as the night continued.

Meg itself, one of Paula Vogel’s first plays, is warm and welcoming, deliberately embracing its audience as part of its storytelling. Its protagonist, the titular Meg (full name Margaret Roper, née More), was the daughter of Sir Thomas More (executed by King Henry VIII for refusing to recognize the supremacy of the king over the Church) and the wife of William Roper. The play is, in part, a refutation of Robert Bolt’s play A Man For All Seasons and of history, both of which place More and Roper at the center of history and relegate Meg to the role of “devoted daughter.” In doing so, it wrestles with deeply philosophical questions: what is the meaning and the goal of life, greatness, legacy? 

It’s a funny, thoughtful, important play to begin with; in director Catalina Beltrán’s (SoA ‘24) hands, it was spectacular. Beltrán’s direction amplified Meg’s witty asides to the audience, the “village idiot” Roper’s clumsy innocence (who, delightfully, wore Converse and jeans in contrast to the rest of the cast’s formal, medieval-inspired clothes, designed by Brynne Oster-Bainnson), and More’s enemy Thomas Cromwell’s menacing stature.

Annabella Pritchard as Meg was delightful, and she felt less like an actress playing a role than like someone possessed by the ghost of Meg herself. Meg was the audience’s narrator, friend, and guide, playfully teasing and quizzing the audience. Even when she slipped into scenes from her past, she brought the audience along with her, sticking her tongue out as Thomas Cromwell made egregious comments or shrugging to apologize for her eventual husband’s behavior. 

Pritchard led a small cast, joined by Meg’s stepmother Alice (Kseniya Janyan), father More (Michael Reep), husband William Roper (Michael Covel), and More’s enemy, Thomas Cromwell (Michael Landes (SoA ‘24)). Fittingly, in the context of this play, the two women were sparkling stand-outs, reaching a physicality of presence that created a total embodiment of their characters. That said, the entire cast was truly fabulous.

The play traces Meg’s life through her marriage to Roper, More’s ascendance to being King Henry VIII’s Lord High Chancellor, his execution, and Meg’s eventual death. Historically, and in the play, Meg was brilliant and recognized for her intellect and her accomplishments in Latin and Greek. Taught by her father, whom she adored, she was one of the most learned women of her time. Still, as More became more involved with the king, he let Meg in on less and less, eventually deliberately leaving her out of his affairs while pulling Roper in. (It’s not always clear how much the play tampers with history, and how much it simply fills in gaps). 

As the play explores, though, the opportunities of Meg’s education also separated her from those around her. She was an “experiment” and a “mystery, unraveling” to More while being a “freak” to her stepmother. Beltrán took the opportunity to pull Meg’s moments of wistfulness and of imagining different lives further into focus, dimming the lights and playing soft, vibrating music (played live by violist Katya Barmotina) in several quiet monologues. 

Perhaps the most captivating moment came as Janyan and Pritchard joined forces when the men were off in London with the king. They represented two versions of life: Alice knit; Meg read. Over the course of a conversation about Alice’s mother and Meg’s pregnancy, they collapsed into each other in a touching, intimate duet of words and of unspoken love.

When More refused to recognize the king’s supremacy over the Church, Cromwell came back to speak with Meg. If she signed a document saying that More swore against the king’s supremacy, the court wouldn’t prosecute Roper, and they’d behead instead of burn More. She did, and More was executed; she refused to attend the execution.

The play ended with a final monologue for Meg following More’s execution. She didn’t teach her daughters Greek, she said. The cast stood throughout the stage, looking at the audience. Four members of the run crew, all female, stood too—their eyes warmly on Meg. She read from a history book, recounting how Margaret More, ever the devoted daughter, was at her father’s execution to give him one last, final embrace. Explicitly in that moment, and implicitly throughout the entire play, history and the play’s versions of reality were at odds, interrogating which stories get told and who gets to tell them. The ending speaks for itself:

“Men are martyred in death,” Pritchard mused wryly, “but women are martyred in life…My grave was marked with a stone cut by history, but oh, women of my age,” and here she met the crew’s eyes, “could I have chosen, I would lie with you, in your unmarked communal grave, of silence.” Blackout.

Meg set via author