STRIFE


The rich get richer and the poor get poorer in Strife, John Galsworthy’s more-relevant-than-ever look at the darker side of HBO’s The Gilded Age.

 Co-directing for Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, Ellen Geer and Willow Geer transpose Galsworthy’s 1909 play from a then contemporary England to 1890s Pennsylvania, smack dab in the middle of the years when industrialist giants like John Jacob Astor, J. P. Morgan, and Cornelius Vanderbilt ran roughshod over the tired, the poor, and the huddled masses who wanted nothing more than a living wage to stay out of the poorhouse, that is assuming they managed to survive.

 Factory owner John Anthony (Franc Ross) is one of such men and plans to stay that way, no matter the pleas of his striking workers for nothing more than a fair shake in life, and most certainly no matter the demands of strike leader David Roberts (Gerald C. Rivers), a man as incapable of compromise as his intransigent adversary.

 Complicating matters for the two men are trades union official Simon Harness (Brian Wallace), who may declare himself on the striking workers’ side but can’t offer them union support because even he finds Roberts’ demands too extreme, and Anthony’s forward-thinking son Edgar (Roman Guastaferro), arguably the only one among his father’s coterie to see the older man’s inhumanity to his fellow man.

 Caught smack dab in the middle are Anthony’s daughter/Edgar’s sister Enid Underwood (Emily Bridges) and her former maid Annie Roberts (Earnestine Phillips), the latter married to strike leader David and on death’s door in large part because of his and her onetime employer’s unwillingness to bend even an inch.

Galsworthy (of The Forsyte Saga fame) may have written Strife well over a century ago, but its tale of the 1%’s unquenchable thirst for wealth, wealth, and more wealth is every bit as timely, and perhaps even more so, in 2025, though to his credit, Galsworthy’s characters are far from cardboard cutouts, and with the equally remarkable Ross and Rivers making for the most redoubtable of adversaries under the mother-daughter Geers’ incisive direction, it’s easy to see where each man is coming from and why there’s likely to be no clear winner when push comes to shove.

 Bridges and Phillips are equally splendid (and equally well matched) as the well-meaning but ultimately powerless women in these two men’s lives.

Wallace’s fiery union leader and Guastaferro’s dynamic forward-thinking son make particularly strong impressions as well, with Sam Cowan, Ted Dane, Tim Halligan, Adam Mondschein, and Andy Stokan providing consistently solid support as men for whom (to varying degrees) profit trumps principles.

 The uniformly fine Tom Allard, Luke Bolle, Julius Geer-Polin, Mo Gordon, Angelika Giatras, Hunter James, Danielle McPhaul, Cavin (CR) Mohrhardt, Rebecca Oca-Nussbaum, Clarissa Park, Kevin Rauch, Annie Reznik, Andrew Rodriguez, Damon Rutledge, Aubrey Sage, David Salper, Susan Stangl, Georgiana Swanson, Patrick Swanson, Aralyn Clare Wilson, Gabe Worstell, and Sammie Zenoz complete what must be one of the biggest casts in Theatricum Botanicum history.

I give Caitlin Clark generally high marks for her costume design, though I can’t help wishing the strikers’ outfits looked a tad more weathered and that Bridges had been more elegantly gowned to befit her wealth and social position, and though I understand why Hayden Kirschbaum lights scenes taking place on the poor side of town in a way that underlies their poverty, I found those taking place stage left to be too dimly lit, particularly for of us seated on the opposite side.

 Marshall McDaniel (music composition and arrangement), Lucas Fehring (sound design), and Alex Penner (properties) complete the design team to impressive effect.

Kim Cameron is stage manager and Amayah Watson is assistant stage manager. Beth Eslick is wardrobe supervisor. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

 Having spent three seasons glued to my TV screen by the machinations of George and Bertha Russell on HBO’s The Gilded Age (and my teen years glued to KCET for The Forsyte Saga), I was fascinated to see John Galsworthy’s take on the so-called Age Of Excess.

An absolutely fascinating look at a time not all that different from the one we’re living in now where rich and poor are concerned, Strife proves as compelling as it is timely.

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd., Topanga.
www.theatricum.com

-Steven Stanley
August 10, 2025
Photos: Ian Flanders

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