'The Welkin' review — Sandra Oh explores women's issues from here to maternity
Read our review of The Welkin off Broadway, starring Sandra Oh and written by Lucy Kirkwood, at Atlantic Theater Company's Linda Gross Theater through June 30.
It’s no fluke that Lucy Kirkwood’s play The Welkin begins in near pitch-blackness. Light from a single candle means you must squint to make out the gore-soaked goings-on. It’s an apt opening for this spiky meditation on women and motherhood as seen from every angle, including the darkest and deadliest ones.
It’s 1759, and townsfolk in Suffolk, England, are all craning their necks and looking to the welkin (as in, the heavens) while awaiting Halley’s Comet. But now the focus is on Sally Poppy (Haley Wong), who’s sentenced to hang for a grisly murder.
But not so fast! She claims she’s pregnant. Local matrons – a dozen of them, in an obvious nod to the legal nailbiter Twelve Angry Men – are summoned from household chores to determine if she’s really with child or lying to escape the noose. Midwife Lizzy Luke (Sandra Oh, centuries away from Killing Eve) becomes an unofficial leader.
Thematically, it’s a fertile set-up: A woman who’s going to give life has unapologetically taken one. Her fate belongs to other women. What unfolds over 2.5 hours is a courtroom-adjacent drama and social consciousness-raiser that plays by its own rules. Why must Sally’s fate be decided immediately? She’s not showing now, but she will in time. But so it goes in this story.
After all, Kirkwood isn’t chasing a strict mid-18th century Law & Order. Talk of “aeroplanes,” inventions 150 years away, and a singalong to a 1980s pop song show that the author’s time frame is flexible. Issues women face about their gender, bodies, power, and, literally, life and death continually arise – predictably so, just like Halley’s.
Kirkwood’s script can ring with heavy-handedness, like when Lizzy moans: “Nobody blames God when there is a woman can be blamed instead.” On the plus side, sly, plot-thickening twists pop up, and director Sarah Benson’s diverse and dynamic ensemble near-uniformly delivers.
The Welkin summary
In rural 1759 England, as Halley’s Comet approaches, a young woman convicted of a heinous homicide has a date with the hangman. Claiming pregnancy, she prompts a gathering of 12 women charged with determining if she’s telling the truth or lying to save her skin.
If references to Halley's seem elusive, the comet is a symbol of the fascination with the cosmos. In the end, it provides a means of a convenient and merciful visual distraction in a climactic flourish that recalls Of Mice and Men – or, in this case, Of Mice and Moms.
What to expect at The Welkin
Kirkwood’s 12 angry women’s experiences with motherhood run the gamut. One matron has given birth 21 times, while another has miscarried 12 times in eight years and delivered a stillborn son. The 10 others fall in between. It makes for a rich context and foundation for varying points of view and why coming to a consensus is no mean feat. Although introducing 12 women in succession gets blurry and cumbersome, the jurors eventually emerge as distinct.
Last seen off Broadway in 2006, Oh, now known for TV’s Killing Eve and Grey’s Anatomy, anchors this American premiere with her nuanced turn as the sympathetic midwife with a secret. Mary McCann adds gravity as a widow whose starchy uprightness may be a mask, while Ann Harada lends a signature light touch as an overheated juror. As a woman desperate to have a child, Emily Cass McDonnell reminds that she has one of the most distinct speaking voices in theatre. Wong’s key performance could use more shading.
Benson uses the large cast to create memorable stage pictures. The image of the entire group with their eyes fixed on Sarah Hollis (Hannah Cabell, an ace), as she summons her voice after being mute for 20 years, looks like a museum-ready painting. Women creating a human screen while a male doctor examines Sally makes for another striking image.
What audiences are saying about The Welkin
In advance of the show’s official opening, The Welkin had earned a strong 79% ranking on Show-Score.
- “See it if for an ensemble of 13 masterful female actors showing the oppression/misrepresentation of women in the 1700's that's still current. GO GO GO.” Show-Score user Bobby Baby
- “See it if you love intense stories that connect the historical mistreatment of women to stereotypes that women still struggle to overcome.” Show-Score user A Sky Full of Stars
- “See it if You love shows that utilize the past to touch on the present (think The Crucible). This cast was fantastic!” Show-Score user Benjamin 0789
- “It’s in dire need of an editor – it goes on forever, w/multiple false endings; the laughs are cheap; the political points painfully obvious.” Show-Score user Hw
Read more audience reviews of The Welkin on Show-Score.
Who should see The Welkin
Fans of Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children, a 2018 Best Play Tony nominee, will savor the play. That drama is set in a post-apocalyptic world, so it’s eye-opening to see what Kirkwood’s up to in the new work. – Sandra Oh fans who know her TV work are in for a treat. Before Killing Eve and Grey’s Anatomy, she acted off Broadway in Satellites, The Vagina Monologues, and Stop Kiss. – Theatregoers seeking good roles for women are in luck — Kirkwood wrote a batch of them in this play.
Learn more about The Welkin
The Welkin offers an intriguing exploration of women from here to maternity.
Photo credit: The Welkin off Broadway. (Photos by Ahron R. Foster)
Originally published on