Recently, I was talking with a stockbroker about success. She said that she could never take the risk that actors take: While this sad, cold world will always need stockbrokers, as an actor, it is entirely possible that no casting director will ever call you back. Isa Arsén’s novel The Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf shows a group of actors and theater producers trying their best to beat the odds and find success on the stage—or at least avoid absolute failure.
In 1955, Margaret Wolf has moved to New York City and made it, at least in Shakespearean-actor terms. She performs off-Broadway (not off-off Broadway, mind you) in a company of Shakespearean players who take their craft very seriously. Her main friend is also her mentor, Edie Bishop, a bona fide theater impresario who helps Margaret get jobs and navigate the scene. When a new actor, Wesley Shoard, joins the company, the two women do some digging and find out that he is a former film star from the U.K. Margaret and Wesley become fast friends and even better stage partners. Their chemistry in Twelfth Night draws large audiences and lands them the lead roles in the company’s production of Macbeth, the cursed Scottish play. Before rehearsals start, though, Wesley, a gay man, begs Margaret to marry him to protect him from McCarthy-era suspicion. She agrees, and the two begin a life together, helped by the financial support of Edie (who buys them an apartment) and Ezra, their director. However, a mental breakdown after opening night sends Margaret into forced convalescence, and her marriage with social butterfly Wesley starts to get rocky. When Wesley gets an offer to perform in an experimental production in the New Mexican desert, Margaret leaps at the chance to leave the city with him, sending the couple into an even more calamitous unknown.
In the complicated, dramatic theater sphere detailed delightfully by Arsén, Margaret is often caught between the roles she plays and the life she wants to live. She struggles to find authenticity. Arsén beautifully captures the strange kind of love of Margaret’s marriage with Wesley, showing the challenge of caring for someone while letting them be who they are. Though the actor’s life is a risky one, Arsén shows us how richly rewarding the world of theater can be for those who brave it.
