International relations get the double-entrendre treatment in the history-inspired espionage drama “Rubicon.”
In playwright Kirsten Potter’s debut work, spy Betty Thorpe leverages her charms — both social and sexual — to advance American interests during the lead-up and into the early stages of World War II.
As hokey as that premise may sound, the play– receiving its world premiere at the Denver Center and directed by Chris Coleman — is as much about gender politics as geo-politics. Tensions about motherhood, sexuality and the ways the rules of the game were (are?) different for men and women feel very contemporary.
As the show opens, Betty (Carolyn Holding) sits at her vanity in her family’s home in Washington, D.C. She’s about to marry the older British diplomat Arthur Pack (Aaron Blakely) when she’s visited by her poet lover, Sean (Geoffrey Kent). Their banter makes clear his adoration but also signals her more calculating nature.
When Betty’s ramrod proper mother, Cora (Kate Forbes), wraps on the door, Sean hides. Cora barges in and begins a conversation with her daughter. There is enough amusing farce and tart repartee in the scene to promise there will be more wry winking. The playwright and the director treat these more playful moments with a light touch.
Arthur Pack (Aaron Blakely) and his formidable wife Betty Pack (Carolyn Holding) in Kirsten Potter’s espionage drama “Rubicon” at the Denver Center. (Jamie Kraus Photography, via The Denver Center)
The mother-daughter sparring reveals that Cora is wise to her wayward daughter. “Removing the cage from the tiger is dangerous. For the tiger, too,” Cora warns Betty of the adventures she’s about to embark on as diplomat’s wife. She also knows Betty is pregnant.
The casually dismissive exchange with Sean and the casually combative conversation with Cora provide early indicators that Betty is anything but conventional. And this early scene underscores the ways in which Thorpe/Pack is a nonconformist even before taking on a role in the Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA. That role often means seducing and bedding powerful — or at least well-positioned — men for vital information.
Among her marks, assets and liaisons: a Spanish nationalist; the secretary to the Polish foreign minister; and the French press attaché at the Vichy embassy, Charles Brousse (Pomme Koch, giving a charmingly insouciant turn).
Betty is fond of the opening line of “David Copperfield,” about whether she’ll be the hero of her own life. Will she, indeed? She’s a woman after all, being “handled” by several men — from British agent Beaverton to MI6’s contact Jack Shelley (Forbes) to FBI agent and mark Paul Fairly — who might admire her effectiveness but also judge her tactics. Blakely is especially unpleasant and therefore good as the FBI agent who thinks he’s got the leg up on Betty.
Except for Holding, the four other cast members nimbly play a few different roles. In addition to being the romantic poet, Kent portrays British agent Beaverton. Perhaps the second most complex character on stage, it’s Beaverton who approaches Betty on a ship and recruits her in satisfying 1930s movie fashion. Over the course of the play, Beaverton will spout his notions about gender roles that uphold the era’s mores even as they seem at odds with his confidence in (and fondness for) his operative Betty.
Early on, he quotes Churchill: “Fear is a reaction, courage is a decision.” She quotes back, sardonically: “It’s not what you do, it’s who you do that matters.” Later, when Betty has left her family — including her son, with whom she’s spent very little time — in hopes of rejoining the OSS, Beaverton asks how she’s faring. “There’s a war on, Mr. Beaverton. We must all make sacrifices,” she replies. To which Beaverton responds, “That’s a bit harder to parse as a wife and mother, I imagine.” In a sense, the play asks, “Is it, really?”
Beaverton (Geoffrey Kent) sings the complicated praise of Betty Pack to MI6’s Jack Shelley (Kate Forbes) in “Rubicon” at the Denver Center. (Jamie Kraus Photography, via The Denver Center)
Thorpe has two children: Anthony, who was conceived prior to her marriage to Pack but may be his son, and daughter Denise. Pack sent the infant boy packing to a foster family for careerist reasons. Denise spends time with nannies and then at boarding school. “Rubicon” smartly ponders the meaning of motherhood for its adventurous patriot.
To the play’s credit, the meaning for Betty is not clear cut. Utilizing a bit of ingenious and poignant staging, a piece of fabric stands in for the infants then unfurls, capturing a sensation of loss but also something perhaps more ephemeral in Betty’s sense of motherhood.
There’s a slinky elegance to “Rubicon” — and not merely because costume designer Meghan Anderson Doyle dresses Betty in elegant satiny gowns. The show moves with a fluid ease. In a choreography of power, Coleman injects the flow of a tango, waltz or minuet into Betty’s interactions with the men of the play, finding the tension, sexual frisson or coy playfulness of a scene.
The scenic design (Tony Cisek) in the in-the-round Kilstrom is spare but evocative. Among the set pieces rising from the floor are the numerous beds that Betty and her quarry make amorous use of. Betty, et al., surely kept the show’s intimacy choreographer (Samantha Egle) busy.
As the star of the show, Holding brings an acute awareness to her performance of a woman based on real-life American spy Amy Elizabeth Thorpe (code name: Cynthia), who is sometimes, but not often, too savvy for her own good.
“How interesting you become when you put that energy of yours to a purpose,” says the wife of the British ambassador, Lady Chilton (Forbes), when Betty realizes that as a woman of a certain standing, she might easily pass back and forth across enemy lines.
Lady Chilton’s comment divulges (not unlike Cora’s early admonishments) something equally insightful about the woman offering it. And this is among the signs of the play’s intelligence: The few other women in “Rubicon” might seem to uphold the status quo but also offer glimmers of a sharp awareness of how things work — something that Betty will push against successfully, to a point. But before that, she will have her say.
“Tell me honestly, does it bother you?… A wife betraying her husband. A mother who’s given up her children,” Beaverton asks before sending Betty and Brousse on a vital mission for Vichy codes. “You’re a good girl, Betty. It must weigh on you terribly.”
Her response is one for the ages — the 1940s, to be sure— but our era, too.
IF YOU GO
“Rubicon”: Written by Kirsten Potter. Directed by Chris Coleman. Featuring Carolyn Holding, Geoffrey Kent, Kate Forbes, Aaron Blakely and Pomme Koch. At the Kilstrom Theatre in the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex, through March 10. For tickets: denvercenter.org or 303-893-4100.