The Rover by Aphra Behn

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Shakesqueer Theatre Company Presents:

The Rover by Aphra Behn

Directed by Kira Simmons

Florinda- Catherine Gilbert
Hellena- Erin Klarner
Valeria- Julia Rudgers
Angellica- Selena Gill
Moretta- Jacob Horowitz
Lucetta- Anna-Christina Kendall
Willmore- Christion Ty Edwards
Belville- James Bryan
Don Antonio- Elijah Salahuddin
Don Pedro- Sonia Bronder
Frederick- Jen Sizer
Blunt- Christian Jost
Phillipo/Sancho- Alison Starr
Callis/Stephano- Chloe Scully
Diego/Bravo- Nora Brown

Synopsis and Analysis of The Rover:

Set at carnival time in Naples in 1656, the play centers around the exploits of a group of banished cavaliers, and the way the women they cross paths with alter the course of their lives.

Within this Naples framework, Behn explores the roles available to Restoration women and men, and the implications of the libertine idea that marriage was an outmoded institution. Here, the play’s most powerful voice is that of Angellica, who sees prostitution as a better choice than marriage. When the rakish Willmore remonstrates with her for charging for sex, she points out to him that men routinely have sex for money: when a man marries he gets his wife’s dowry.

The Rover is a play immensely ahead of its time. The piece is a restoration critique on what we know today as toxic masculinity. Behn addresses aggressive masculine culture in the amount of times the men in the play fight over women and their honor, and yet we also witness them crudely feel as if they’ve some right to a woman’s body, much to the indignation of the women themselves.

It also provides a platform wherein the women of the play hold their own in a game of gender roles that is certainly not rigged in their favor. We see strong female figures like Angelica and Lucetta reclaim their power over men through their sexuality. We also see relatives Florinda, Hellena, and Valeria reject the plans for their future that the men in their lives have laid out for them in favor of blazing their own trails of love and lust.

In its setting during the Naples carnival, The Rover uses a long-standing theatrical tradition, in which a topsy-turvy world can reveal and temporarily challenge the norms of the everyday. Through the disguises in which the Spanish sisters and their cousin venture onto the streets, Florinda can arrange an elopement with her beloved Belvile, and Hellena and Valeria can find their love-matches.