REVIEW: In Tarragon’s outstanding Prophetess, language is both mighty and inadequate
iPhoto caption: Karen Robinson in 'Prophetess.' Photo by Jae Yang.
During a volcanic monologue at the climax of Tarragon Theatre’s Prophetess, written by Ho Ka Kei (a.k.a. Jeff Ho), protagonist Margaret explains the linguistic root of her academic discipline. “The etymology of etymology is the study of true sense / Of true origins,” declares the York University professor, embodied by Karen Robinson.
Margaret’s facility with text helps her maneuver through an institution like York, where words hold significant power. But the brilliant middle-aged scholar finds herself surprisingly unequipped to process the true sense of more elemental forces: love, grief, spiders. In this outstanding new play (directed by Mike Payette), language is both mighty and inadequate.
As Ferron Delcy outlined in her Intermission partner feature on the production, Prophetess takes inspiration from Shakespeare’s eight history plays representing events related to the Wars of the Roses. Margaret is a version of Queen Margaret of Anjou, from Richard III and the Henry VI trilogy. But no prior knowledge is needed to understand this five-character contemporary drama, where professors’ tongues are the broadswords in an English department’s political battles.
It’s the first day of fall semester and Margaret bolts awake from a nightmare swarming with spiders. Cheerfully twiddling a moka pot, supportive husband Henry (Rick Roberts) calms her down with bacon and farm-fresh eggs. But the curse has begun to spin its web, and when Margaret encounters novice professor Anne (Natasha Mumba) at the butcher, she slaps an imaginary spider off the newcomer’s face. Over the rest of the play’s 90-minute runtime, HR maven Elizabeth (Christine Horne) tries to use Anne’s account of the assault to damage Margaret’s reputation and secure the position of department chair for her husband Dicky (also Roberts).
Much of Ho’s script consists of realistic contemporary dialogue — that butcher-shop conversation, for instance, roves from Wagyu beef to iron deficiencies to pollotarianism. As the play’s conflict intensifies, Horne and Mumba, in particular, become more and more grounded in the here-and-now of the dramatic situation, employing similarly head-high physicalities to evoke their characters’ opposing flavours of ambition.
Margaret attempts to keep up with the world, at one point referencing DMs to an auditorium of students. But we soon realize that she and reality aren’t really synchronized: though she can trace words back centuries — and will do so unasked, in the middle of a conversation — she’s never heard of HBO and fails to understand the innuendo of Henry being “good with wood.” Her imagination is more ancestral than these stuffy halls. When she monologues, glorious poetic language pours forth. Take an excerpt of her opening dream: “A hole deep / If I’d take one step more / I’d fall / I look down / See no bottom / Peeking red glinting eyes peek back / Hungry eyes if eyes have appetite / Glistening canines flashing / The green behind roaring louder still / As if trumpets heralding angel descent.” No wonder the HR department bores her.
Jawon Kang’s set may be the most lushly realized to appear in the Tarragon Mainspace since the pandemic. Like Margaret herself, it’s not quite contemporary, with an old-academia aesthetic that’s less 2026 York campus and more early-20th-century Oxbridge: amber wood panelling, shelves of gilded hardcovers, Gothic arched stained-glass windows.
Over the years, Ho has demonstrated an interest in etymology. In Cockroach — his previous Tarragon premiere, from 2022 — Shakespeare appeared as a character, his “magnifying glass hovering over his words in the hands of future writers,” as Aisling Murphy put it in this magazine. And most of Ho’s work etymologizes the art of theatre by reckoning with classic plays: there’s the tragedy-inspired Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) and Antigone: 方, both from 2019, as well as Pastoral, a riff on As You Like It that premiered in August.
We could trace the myriad ways these adaptations complicate and rework their source materials, with Ho’s tendency to launch into verse trampolining off the Greeks’ and Shakespeare’s own poetic affinities.
Except the final beat of Prophetess is a physical gesture, and the most profound thing about Ho’s monologues might be what they unlock in Robinson. In the play’s aforementioned climax, Robinson’s magnificent instrument soars even higher than the text. If you want to enact something about the true origins of theatre, perhaps you start with an actor on stage, and liberate that actor to channel the deepest parts of herself — manifesting her character’s grief through limbs that quake with feeling and cries that pierce the clouds. So birth truths beyond words.
Prophetess runs at Tarragon Theatre until October 29. More information is available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
Liam Donovan
Liam is Intermission’s senior editor. He lives in Toronto. His Substack newsletter is available at loamdonovan.substack.com.
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