Two women bond while sorting through the older one’s possessions in the two-hander starring Abbe Tanenbaum (left) and Virginia Wall Gruenert.
It can be difficult to write a play that has both artistic and political merit, one that is dramaturgically sound and makes a political point emphatically. Often such plays succeed as agitprop, not so much as well-crafted works of theater. Abbe Tanenbaum doesn’t fall into the usual trap with her new drama What Kind of Woman: Abortion, the issue at hand, isn’t even discussed in depth until nearly halfway through the play, and the interpersonal drama is pleasant to watch unfold. Her characters and story lines could be developed more solidly, however.
Actor and author Tanenbaum (right, with Gruenert) worked as a personal organizer in real life for somebody who had letters like those Anne finds in Nora’s home. Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
Directed by Kira Simring,What Kind of Woman features two characters—Nora, a 68-year-old alumna of second-wave feminism, and Anne, a thirtyish actress with a side hustle as a personal organizer. Nora spots Anne’s organizing video on YouTube and hires her in advance of a visit from Nora’s long-estranged son, David. Her small New York apartment is crammed with 40 years of tchotchkes and mementos (depicted in superb detail by Tucker Topel’s set design).
Among the items uncovered in the decluttering are letters that desperate pregnant women sent to the underground abortion clinic where Nora volunteered in pre-Roe years. Nora herself had written such a letter pleading for help as a pregnant 16-year-old in Erie, Pa., but she married the father and had the baby—only to leave them both for a life in New York City when her son was still a little boy. Anne has parent-abandonment issues of her own, as her father moved away when she was an adolescent.
Over the course of the play, which spans a couple of weeks in 2013, the two women help each other face up to these familial disappointments. Their growing bond and the redress it offers are nicely played by the actors, Virginia Wall Gruenert (artistic director of Off the Wall, the company producing the show) as Nora, and playwright Tanenbaum as Anne.
The performances, while heartfelt, do feel like performances, though—as if Tanenbaum and Gruenert are saying lines rather than fully embodying the characters. That may be more the fault of the writing than the acting, since the script tends to sacrifice plausibility and character consistency for emotional or dramatic flair. One example is Anne’s memory of falling in love with theater. The first time her father took her, she says, “he snuck us backstage, and we watched the rest of the show from the wings. We sat on this spiral staircase at the side of the stage, and it was magic. I decided right then I never wanted it to end.” This doesn’t sound like something that would actually happen: Outsiders can’t just wander backstage during performances, and a person can become entranced by the “magic” of theater just as easily from a seat in the audience.
Nora (Gruenert, right) unearths some forgotten cash after Anne (Tanenbaum, left) gets her to clean up.
There are also clumsy explanations for certain things, such as David’s changing travel plans and why post-menopausal Nora has a bunch of pregnancy tests in her home, as well as a few passages best described as “womansplaining”—expository dialogue that sounds more like a lesson than conversation. One of these is about activist Flo Kennedy; another about dilation and curettage, the common abortion/miscarriage procedure known as D&C (which, improbably, Anne has never heard of).
Anne is pro-choice but criticizes women like herself, those with knowledge of and access to birth control, for ever needing an abortion. Nora counters, “Birth control doesn’t always work”—an odd thing for somebody who worked in reproductive health care to say, because contraception does almost always work when used properly. As the disagreement escalates, they each say something that doesn’t really make sense. Anne conflates two different scenarios in reiterating her position: “If they use all the precautions and still get pregnant? Maybe it’s meant to be. I mean, if you made a mistake, you shouldn’t use it as a get-out-of-jail-free card.” And Nora upbraids Anne: “You are the fucking problem. I dedicated my life to make it safe and legal, and your privileged arrogance is burning it to the ground.” But it’s not any pro-choice faction that’s to blame for rolling back reproductive rights.
Rather than being pounded home as an applause-getter as in so many political plays, the abortion argument in What Kind of Woman provides a particular, timely framing for this intergenerational friendship. Video segments projected on the walls between scenes show moments in Nora and Anne’s relationship not portrayed on stage (video design by Katie Mack, who codirected the photography with Jordan Battiste). There may be some logic lapses in the women’s backstories and dialogue, but this well-meaning play can win you over with its tenderheartedness.
What Kind of Woman runs through Nov. 19 at the Cell (338 W. 23rd St.). Evening performances are 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. Sundays. For tickets, visit thecelltheatre.org.
