Jill surprised me on Friday night with a pair of tickets to see Ben Jonson's play, The Silent Woman, at the Shakespeare Theater. We've been meaning to check that venue out since we've lived in the District, but for some reason had never gotten around to it. Since I had gotten her tickets for Baz Luhrman's La Boheme on Broadway for Christmas/Anniversary, the chance to see something Shakespearean in return was perfect.

Although Jill called the theater at very nearly the last moment (last Tuesday), we got wonderful seats: front row, center. And I mean front row. Now, normally you have to beware of front rows in certain theaters, because you end up having your view of the back of the stage blocked by the stage itself. In this case, however, all we lost was the ability to see the actors' feet at certain times, and it didn't affect our enjoyment of the play at all. The show was a 2pm matinee, but on a gloomy Saturday, that wasn't a problem either.

The theater itself is only two blocks south of the Gallery Place metro stop, right next to one of our favorite restaurants, Jaleo, and there's an Austin Grill on the same block. We took a picture outside of the theater and had planned to take some more, but my camera's batteries had discharged to the point where no more juice was left (and there was nothing open in the area with batteries--note to self, carry spares).

Inside, we were surprised when a female voice called out my name. Joann, who was the administrative assistant for the MFA program in creative writing at American University while I was in the program, was waiting on the side for standing room only tickets. She confirmed what Jill had said about the word of mouth on this production being excellent, and offered to sit on our laps in the front row.

Jonson wrote at the same time as Shakespeare, albeit he started earlier and achieved more fame in his time than Will did. For example, Jonson was the first playwright to have his work put together in a folio and offered for sale (the Elizabethans previously had felt a play needed to be watched, not read), and Jonson was also the first person ever named the poet laureate of England. So, why has Shakespeare overshadowed Jonson 400 years later? I'm not quite sure, not being a scholar of the period, and the easy-to-follow language and plot of The Silent Woman didn't pose any quick answers to that question either.

The rough plot is the kind of farce that P.G. Wodehouse loved (and he was one who read the complete Shakespeare every year). A stingy uncle threatens to disinherit his nephew, whom he suspects of not respecting him, by marrying. The problem is that the uncle can't stand the sound of any voice but his own, and who ever heard of a wife who was silent? Yet, in town, there is a report of a woman who speaks but six words in a day, with a voice as low and beautiful as the contented sound of a cow in the distance. The uncle marries, then discovers his wife is the same as any other now that the match is made, and the uncle is forced to big for his nephew to find a solution to his problem.

There's a wonderful series of surprises at the end that everyone is warned not to give away, and the production does a great job of not giving away the game too early. This is accomplished by an excellent cast and some ingenious costume and set design, in addition to the madcap nature of the plot itself which keeps you guessing about what is to come next.

Now that I've seen the Shakespeare Theater, which is actually quite cozy and reasonable in size, I'm very inclined to return. However, waiting for us in the mail when we got back last evening was a notice that the Washington Stage Guild, which has been our favorite company while we've lived here, is putting on a production of George Bernard Shaw's The Philanderer this next month. Since Jill finished Shaw's biography late last year, we've been wanting to see more Shaw, so I suspect our next theater outing will be that.