After two fine productions last semester, the University of Maine’s theater department has stumbled terribly with its latest show, “A Pirate’s Life for She.” The best thing I can say about the play, running through March 3 at Hauck Auditorium, is the sword fighting and costumes are excellent.
The play, written by Amie Root, a certified fight director, has been produced just twice previously — in 2021 in North Carolina and the following year at her alma mater, Western Illinois University, according to information on her website.
That most likely means a lot of directors have passed on it and with good reason, even though it features gay characters and encourages roles be played non-binary actors.
The script is haphazardly put together, the storyline is hard to follow, the dialogue is dull and the laughs fell flat at Sunday’s matinee, attended by fewer than 40 people. At least two audience members sitting near me dozed off during the first act.
“A Pirate’s Life for She” features two real women pirates, Anne Bonny (Kayla Barton) and Mary Read (Alissa Halloway), who also were lovers. The production, which has a few songs sung without musical accompaniment, tells a tale about how the women and crew, plus their gay best friend Pierre (Josh Worster), work to retrieve their ship after a competing pirate named Barnet (Grimmie Jones) absconds with it.
The plot revolves around how they get it back with the help of a would-be pirate called Jilly (Owen Hines), whose true love Petunia (Emmalyse Wozniak) is being held by Barnet.
As the swishy clothes-designing Frenchman Pierre, Worster steals every scene he’s in and never takes the character too seriously. Dressed in satin and wearing a stunning wig of black ringlets, he appeared to be having the most fun of anyone on stage dashing about, often with sword swinging. There is but one show-stopping moment at the the top of the Second Act when Bonny sings “Let Me Rest.” Barton’s strong and mature voice kept everyone awake as the pirate considered her future on the high seas. She probably would truly shine in a more traditional musical.
The rest of the cast worked hard, but no one else really stood out. Collectively, the actors could not lift the show above the limits of the script.
Director D Granke, an assistant professor in the theater department and a fight director, knows the playwright through the Society of American Fight Directors. He expertly used all of the Hauck stage to move the 14-member cast around to keep the action going. The sword fights are the best I’ve ever seen at the university, but Granke failed to get the student cast to gel into a cohesive ensemble.
That seemed odd given that in January, Granke built a tight and taut ensemble of students and community members for True North Theatre’s moving revival of William Inge’s “Picnic.”
The technical aspects of the show were excellent, with scenic design by Daniel Bilodeau, lighting by Scout Hough, sound by JP Sedlock and costumes by Janet Sussman. Sussman created colorful clothes for the show that helped define characters in more detail than the script did.
Traditionally, the theater department has produced a spring musical, often in collaboration with the music department. Those shows have ranged from the traditional — “Grease” and “Jesus Christ Superstar” — to edgier ones, including “Urinetown” and “Spring Awakening.” They all have had musicians on stage. “A Pirate’s Life for She” calls for acapella singing, but instruments would have helped the show sound more like a musical. That also probably would have led to micing the actors, making their words easier to understand. Much of the dialogue was muddled due to inconsistent enunciation.
But even a band, expert swordplay, great costumes and good performances could not have saved this show from Root’s muddled script and Granke’s haphazard direction, despite the effort put in by the student cast and crew. “A Pirate’s Life for She” is a great disappointment after last semester’s deeply moving “Rabbit Hole” and the 1912 “The Post Office,” set in India and rarely staged in the U.S.
Those productions showed that UMaine has a deep well of talented performers to draw from. They and the theatergoing public of Greater Bangor deserve a better play than “A Pirate’s Life for She” to showcase that talent.
“A Pirate’s Life for She” will be performed at Hauck Auditorium in the Memorial Union at the University of Maine at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling 207-581-1755.