11th Play - A Feminine Ending by Sarah Treem
Alec Beard (Jack) and Gillian Jacobs (Amanda) in the Playwrights Horizon’s production in NYC. Photo: Sara Krulwich.
I had never heard of this play, but found it in my online library. I must have downloaded it from somewhere … I was intrigued by the name and summary, and so it became #11.
Summary: “Having recently graduated from a major conservatory, and with a rocker boyfriend on the brink of stardom, aspiring composer Amanda Blue’s “extraordinary life” seems to be all mapped out. But when she’s called home to answer her mother’s distress call about a [marriage in crisis/marital crisis], Amanda’s grand plan starts to unravel. A Feminine Ending is a bittersweet play about dreams deferred, loves lost, and learning to trust a woman’s voice in a man’s world.” from Concord Theatricals.
Laura’s thoughts in brief: In contrast to several of the reviews I read, I actually liked this play. Was it earth-shattering? No. But I enjoyed it - it had moments I expected and some I didn’t. The relationship with potentially-but-highly-likely-to-be-famous rock star boyfriend Jack seems doomed for a number of reasons. As Jack considers his future and Amanda asks him if they will be happy, Jack responds that he won’t be and that he can’t promise her happiness. “It’s not in my nature. I can only promise you a horizon pool and an extraordinary life.” Kudos to Treem for writing a somewhat self-centered male character who is that honest. He’s a bit of a jerk, but charming and sometimes vulnerable. You almost understand why Amanda sacrifices her potential career as a composer to support him. Things get interesting when Kim, Amanda’s mom, begs her to come home to New Hampshire because she needs her. It turns out that Kim believes her husband is having an affair and she wants to leave him and go live with Amanda in New York. That particular plot turn is not particularly new, but it crescendos when Kim issues an ultimatum, “We cannot both be housewives. If you marry Jack, I have to leave your father. One of us needs to live an extraordinary life.” Which I thought was quite funny, and also enormously sad, seeing Kim fight for the feminism she left behind to raise her daughter. “I just want to be seen,” says Kim. Knowing America's (and many other cultures’) propensity to shove middle-aged women into the background, that line hit me powerfully. Anyone who has ever studied Shakespeare knows about the term feminine ending which is “the appearance of an additional unstressed syllable at the end of a verse line; thus in pentameter verse an eleventh.” (Oxford Reference). Apparently, there is also a feminine ending in music; Amanda (and also Wikipedia, interestingly word-for-word) tells us that it is “a phrase or movement that ends in an unstressed note or weak cadence.” Both of these are, of course, in opposition to a masculine ending. I love a play that addresses how misogyny is woven so deeply in our society we almost don’t even notice it. Ironically, some of the most feminist thinking in this play comes from Billy, Amanda’s ex-boyfriend from high school, who she sees when she goes home to deal with her mother. Billy, now a reasonably content postal worker, says: “Our western languages are derivations of Latin and Rome was an epicenter of rich, white men. But it leaves women and non-white people sort of out in the cold.” Yeah, “sort of” being an understatement. Billy does tell Amanda that all of these things he said were the few things he learned before dropping out of college - this is a GREAT advertisement for college in my eyes … Honestly, my biggest beef with this show is that Amanda is pretty whiny about not “living her dream.” However, she IS making a living writing music, even if it is for commercial jingles. It feels a little privileged that she is so dissatisfied about that. Actors do commercials for money all the time - do we love them? Hell, no, but it enables us to do other things we do love to do. Do your argubly pretty fun job and write your damn symphony on the side, you’re only in your twenties, Amanda! Um, so, yeah, that’s my problem with the show. But, overall, I really thought it was funny and a good read. I appreciated also that all three males in the show (as well as the other female in Amanda’s world, her mom) were fully dimensional and interesting characters. The playwright could have made the men just assholes, and they do have their moments, but it’s just not that simple. I’d act in this play - I don’t really want to direct it, but Kim is a clever, funny pain-in-the-ass with whom we start to empathise. I’d enjoy playing her - someone do this show and cast me!
READ MORE! Here’s what others had to say about productions:
https://variety.com/2007/legit/reviews/a-feminine-ending-2-1200555273/