They don’t pay the bills like a big musical, but digging up long-lost gems is a Shaw Festival specialty. Plays the general public has forgotten or never even heard of back on stage for the first time in decades.
In the case of Cicely Hamilton’s “Just to Get Married,” it hasn’t been too long — it was last seen in London’s Finborough Theatre in 2017. But before that it was in mothballs for a century.
By the time the Shaw Festival’s production collapses in its miserable final act, it’s easy to see why it vanished for so long.
It probably qualifies as a twist because up until then, Hamilton’s play goes against the grain. It certainly defies the eye-rolling comedies and melodramas of its era in which couples meet and agree to get married in seconds. Hamilton, a feminist best known for the suffragist “How the Vote Was Won,” exposes that dreary cliché for what it was — women desperate to get married because they had no other options.
That’s the state frustrated Georgiana (Kristi Frank) finds herself in at the play’s outset. She is like so many women of her era — unskilled and unsuited for life without the financial lifejacket of a husband. At 29 and living with her stately aunt (Claire Jullien), the situation is getting urgent for her.
Her best option is the shy but well-off Adam Lankester (Kristopher Bowman), who it turns out is crushing hard on her. The early scenes play off their awkwardness with Frank and Bowman a constant delight, directed with comical charm by Severn Thompson.
But the courting isn’t what matters here — it’s what happens after they agree to get married. Suddenly faced with what she was chasing, Georgiana realizes what a fake, contrived life she’s in for. She doesn’t love Adam, she’s simply doing what’s expected. And necessary.
It starts to unravel in Act 2, when Hamilton drives home the absurdity of it all — it isn’t a marriage of equals and Georgiana feels both anger and disgust at the deception she resorts to. With the cards laid bare, she admits “I accepted you just because there was no one else.”
Oh, if only the play ended there. The sting of this confrontation is wiped out by what follows.
Rather than upend the insulting template she was clearly tired of, Hamilton seems to embrace it in the play’s bewildering final 10 minutes. As if she was afraid to send the audience home without a tacked-on happy ending, betraying everything that came before.
No doubt, Hamilton had commercial factors to consider here. But to push back against the obvious only to give in at the end feels like she undercut her own play.
There’s plenty worth exploring in “Just to Get Married.” It’s unfortunate they aren’t explored in a better play.
JUST TO GET MARRIED, by Cicely Hamilton. Starring Kristopher Bowman, Kristi Frank and Claire Jullien. Directed by Severn Thompson. At the Royal George Theatre until Oct. 16. **1/2 (out of five)
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