Sophie Treadwell may not be a well-known name in American households, but the American Century Theater is trying to change that. In its current production of Allyson Currin’s sprightly and moving “Treadwell: Bright and Dark,” American Century Theater introduces a woman who represents the American spirit: strong, inventive, unconventional and determined to make her voice heard.
If you go
“Treadwell: Bright and Dark”
Where: American Century Theater, Theatre on the Run, 3700 S. Four Mile Run Drive, Arlington
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; through June 19
Info: $26 to $32; 703-998-4555; americancentury.org
Born in 1885 on a ranch in Stockton, Calif., Treadwell idolized her Mexican-American lawyer father and tried to emulate his success the moment she graduated from the University of California at Berkeley. Whatever else she did — she was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse and a governess on a cattle ranch — she wrote. Treadwell’s professional career began when she started reviewing theater, but she really wanted to cover more serious news. Having talked her way into being a reporter for The San Francisco Bulletin, she wrote an 18-part expose of the way prostitutes were treated by so-called “Christian charity” organizations. During World War I, Sophie became one of America’s first female foreign war correspondents, and she was the only journalist to land an interview with notorious revolutionary Pancho Villa.
In Currin’s script, the events of Sophie’s life are narrated more or less chronologically, although there are some impressionistic time loops and characters and events occasionally appear out of sequence. The play is flawed slightly by a few repetitious statements about Treadwell’s determination to be taken seriously. The material of the play makes that clear, and the repetitions are unnecessary. But on the whole, “Treadwell: Bright and Dark” is a neatly constructed portrait of a complete life, in which memory plays as large a part as quotidian reality.
Treadwell is portrayed sensitively by Melissa Flaim, who cleanly etches the highs and lows of Treadwell’s life. Whether she is describing her love of — and disenchantment with — the theatre, explaining her adoration of painter Maynard Dixon or creating a witty caricature of pompous actor John Barrymore, Flaim paints a vivid portrait of a woman who had strong passions and refused to ignore them.
Ryan Wineinger’s set design includes a small, raised wooden floor on which there is only a chair, two suitcases and many manuscripts, books and folders spread about. On the rear wall are two layers of eight clotheslines stretched from one side of the stage to the other. Letters, postcards and telegrams are attached to them with clothespins.
Directed by Stephen Jarrett, Flaim moves little within this circumscribed place, standing to address her audience, drinking a sip of tea, taking a letter from a clothesline, reading it, pinning it back up again. Flaim’s crisp, restrained movements contrast nicely with the flamboyance and complexity of the script, which spins rapidly from the heartrending to the hilarious moments in Treadwell’s existence.
Treadwell’s life was not an easy one. A woman who tried to survive in the male-dominated professions of journalism and playwriting, a sensitive individual who had severe panic attacks throughout her life, a determined feminist when it was not fashionable to be independent of one’s husband, Treadwell suffered throughout her life. It is a testament to Currin’s expertise as a playwright and Flaim’s abilities as an actress that those sufferings, tempered with humor, combine in “Treadwell: Bright and Dark” to suggest that Treadwell was one of America’s most intriguing and accomplished modern writers.
