It’s unclear whether or not the play takes itself seriously, but it can’t do both.

Where “Wives” is amusing, it is also simultaneously confusing. “Wives” blurs all its creative lines, and some combinations flatten together rather than compound. The result is a play that can be described as just about everything but consistent disjointed stories intersect with spontaneous bursts of singing and spoken word, history is injected with modern colloquialisms and comedy collides with solemnity in a fashion harmonious in one moment, but dissonant the next. Straightforward yet bold, Backhaus executes her uncommon subject matter with even more unconventional storytelling. The play, which had its West Coast premiere at Berkeley’s Aurora Theatre Company on June 24, takes a very complicated approach to explore a relatively simple and intriguing question: In a world dominated by the patriarchy, what are the lost stories of wives and women?ĭirected by Lavina Jadhwani, “Wives” tells a non-chronological story about Catherine de’ Medici, queen to Henry II of France Hadley Richardson, Martha Gellhorn and Mary Welsh, three of Ernest Hemingway’s wives Maharani Gayatri Devi, wife to Maharaja Man Singh II, and Roop Rai, his concubine and two Oxbridge University students who attempt to reframe the world using witchcraft. Jaclyn Backhaus’ “Wives” evades definition.

Aurora theatre