Duchess treat

THE UGLY DUCHESS by Janet Munsil, directed by Britt Small, with Paul Terry. Presented by Intrepid Theatre/Terry at the Robert Gill (214 College). July 4 at 11 pm, July 6 and 9 at 7 pm, July 8 at 5:30 pm, July 10 at 4 pm, July 11 at 12:30 pm, July 12 at 8 pm.

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. But what if both viewer and object are convinced that “unattractive” is the kindest description possible?

Yet other qualities, including power and irony, give allure to the subject of The Ugly Duchess, Janet Munsil’s solo piece about Margaret Maultasch, a 14th-century ruler of Tyrol.

Munsil was struck, as are many viewers, by a work in London’s National Gallery called Portrait Of A Grotesque Old Woman. This vision of a mannish, jowly figure stops people cold, according to Munsil, producer of the Victoria Fringe and the author of Emphysema (A Love Story), later retitled Smoking With Lulu.

Reputedly a portrait of Margaret, the painting also inspired Alice In Wonderland illustrator John Tenniel’s unmotherly Duchess whose baby turns into a pig.

Researching the original Margaret – her last name translates as “pocket-mouth” – Munsil found little except the location of her sister’s burial and a proclamation in which Margaret abdicated, signing Tyrol over to Austria.

“But she was so notoriously ugly that she became a boogiewoman,” says the playwright. “Mothers would warn their children to be good or the Maultasch would get them.”

The monologue Munsil devised blends a little of Margaret’s life, some information about the Black Death and a 15th-century manual for women in power that says they must deny their female nature and assume male attributes. Maybe it’s appropriate, then, that Margaret is played by a man, Paul Terry.

“Then as now, beauty was thought to be good and ugliness meant death and evil. Margaret’s the perfect scapegoat in a really dark time.”

Noting that the grotesque is also a powerful medieval totem in art and architecture – think of cathedral gargoyles – Munsil tried to figure out what it meant to be grotesque in that age. So Margaret wonders, too, knowing what she looks like and trying to be the most pious, good person possible to transcend her physicality.

“A clever, ironic woman, she maintains that she can overcome the way she looks, and by the end she reconciles herself to it in a way, finding a balance between her self-image and her physical image.” JK