Review: Winifred Is a Misstep for Theater LaB Houston and UnCommonWill Collective

I get the idea behind WINIFRED. I really do. Winifred "Winnie" Wagner is punished by history for being a woman with a (rumored) sexual history. I understand it, and I still didn't enjoy the play or agree with its driving point.

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Earlier this month, Theater LaB Houston in collaboration with UCWC, the UnCommonWill Collective, presented the premiere production of WINIFRED, written and directed by Alva Hascall. The debut comes after five years in a chrysalis of development, workshops, and staged readings.

WINIFRED stars Tek Wilson as Winifred "Winnie" Wagner, British-born widow of Siegfried Wagner and head of the Wagner music festival in Germany. Winnie survived World War II mostly unscathed due to her close, personal friendship with Adolf Hitler but, following the suicide of Hitler and the surrender of Germany, she was tried as a Nazi Party member and convicted as a Group II Offender. As a result, she was stripped of her power, influence, and assets. But she remained defiant, refusing to disavow her friendship with Hitler or her past.

WINIFRED attempts to play devil's advocate for Wagner who, by her own account, was a lover of fascism and Hitler unto her death. (Even with the assistance of a dramaturg, fellow UCWC member Lisa Westkaemper, Hascall attempts to obfuscate this fact with feminist musings on slut-shaming and the burdens of motherhood and marriage.) Wagner did save select Jewish acquaintances from the reaches of the Third Reich and their concentration camps, as the play often reminds, but this does not make her a humanitarian. For the life of me, I can't comprehend why Hascall chose Winifred Wagner as his hill to die on.

Lest you think I'm unwilling to view a nuanced portrayal of a negative historical character, let's switch this discussion onto some uniquely American history to get some perspective. Consider Strom Thurmond, United States Senator from South Carolina and staunch pro-segregationist. As a young man, Thurmond fathered a daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, with a black teen working for his family as a maid. Not completely inhuman, Thurmond met with Washington-Williams often and financially provided for her. But he never publicly acknowledged his mixed-race daughter or renounced his segregationist viewpoints. Should we make a play, two hours with one intermission, attempting to rehabilitate his image? Is it not admirable that he didn't abandon his beliefs just because they were unpopular? And what if we were to choose, out of the entirety of his legacy, to focus on the fact that he was a Southern man with a thick South Carolina accent. Television personalities of today and definitely of his time made classist, regionalist jokes at his expense rather than engage in an substantive critique of his odious political ideas. While it would not be an untrue theatrical representation of the man, it would be welterweight analysis of a heavyweight subject. This is my view on WINIFRED.

With no thematic depth to anchor it, WINIFRED hopscotches around theatrical elements to explore its themes, using the relationship between son and mother, video projections, design, and music, making it a meandering telling of a possibly compelling story. Also, because it has a cast of two playing around 5 roles, WINIFRED relies on expository dialogue to tell the story and shock value to keep audience attention. Cursing and sex jokes provide one or two laughs but over its two hour run time WINIFRED becomes tiresome and off-putting. This is not to say the writing does not have its charms. The language is often beautiful, literally. The characters have a stylized almost musical way of speaking that is pleasing to the ear, apt considering Winifred's occupation. Additionally, the language is clever, even when its overall point is not.

Wilson (Winifred) is well cast too. It makes perfect sense that the play was written for her. She has good timing. Watching her command the crowd with the rhythms of her speech, I was put in mind of a standup comedian twisting and turning the screws of laughter and, of course, her character who rules the roost of this show, controlling the light and sound cues. That said, her portrayal of Winifred Wagner lacks energy. The play conceives of its lead character as an iron fist with a velvet glove. And yet Wilson's delivery isn't velvety. It's more disinterested than anything else.

Still, there are more bright spots in the production. Steward Savage, Costume and Set Designer, creates a vibrant set. The floor inspired by the Berlin Wall provides a perfect counterpoint to Wagner's parlor, a glittering testament to her glittering wealth while Video Artist Dave Merson Hess provides the most compelling storytelling of the evening. WINIFRED also illuminates the hypocrisy and duplicity of pro-fascism Germans who tucked-tail at the end of World War II along with the plight of the everyday working class German citizen following the end of the war. These shining moments aside, the multi-media production is a mighty large misstep, albeit a rare one, from Theater LaB Houston.

Review researched and written by Katricia Lang; Summary of Winifred Wagner biography written by Natalie de la Garza.

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Remaining performances of WINIFRED are at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 21; and 3 p.m. Sunday, May 22 at Midtown Arts and Theater Center Houston (MATCH), 3400 Main Street. 713-521-4533. Matchhouston.org. $32-47

Please note that WINIFRED includes adult material: images of warfare violence, frank sexual discussions, and loud noises e.g. staged gunfire.

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