Review of Little Wars, New Haven Theater Company
Steven Carl McCasland's Little Wars, New Haven Theater Company's latest offering, the first of their 2026 season, brings together seven women in a drawing room in the French Alps in 1940. Four of them are famous writers—Gertrude Stein (Deena Nicol-Blifford), Lillian Hellman (Sandra Rodriguez), Dorothy Parker (Jodi Williams), Agatha Christie (Margaret Mann)—another is Alice B. Toklas (Ash Lago), Stein's famous partner, another is Bernadette (Lynette Victoria), a younger woman Stein and Toklas have taken in and who now waits upon them, and the last is a rather taciturn woman (Abby Klein) who calls herself Mary, but that's an alias.
Early on, before the drinking party gets underway, we learn that Mary is accepting money from Gertrude and Alice in an effort to get Jews out of Nazi Germany using fake passports. Mary wasn't supposed to arrive until after the guests had gone, but she arrives before anyone else. The tensions surrounding Mary's activities create an obvious discord with the social occasion. Further tension, mostly comic, is created by Stein's hectoring attitude toward her guests, treating Parker with indifference and Hellman with various registers of disdain. Hellman tends to give as good as she gets with a certain weary charm. Christie, whose presence seems the biggest stretch (the play is called "speculative fiction," which means McCasland is free to imagine this gathering on his terms), seems merely quizzical. There is plenty of badinage amongst the women, taking shots at one another and at the state of the world, which tends to include some sense of how, fighting “little wars,” they each became the unique individuals they are.
All are inquisitive, and so each will have to account for herself in some fashion, which leads to personal exposure—such as Dorothy Parker's abortion early in life, revealed with musing sorrow by Williams, and Agatha Christie's famous disappearance when she "just drove" then hid-out in a hotel, incognito, after learning of her husband's infidelity, a story handled with graceful self-deprecation by Mann, and Alice Toklas' concerns about Stein's ulcer and general health issues, which Lago makes a touching moment of emotional confession. Hanging over the evening is the fragility of the world order as Nazi Germany steps up its efforts to conquer Europe. Stein, who brooks no opinion but her own, is convinced France could never fall (it's to Nicol-Blifford's credit that her Stein, opinionated and imperious, is tempered by charm and never simply obnoxious—or almost never). In the second half of the play, the gathering must face the fact that France has surrendered to German occupation. This creates new tensions since Bernadette is a German Jew and thus at risk. The others can claim U.S. or (for Christie) British citizenship, and so the roving concern of the conversation finally settles on Bernadette's story and on who, exactly, Mary is.
New Haven Theater Company has a knack for finding dialogue-driven plays in fairly static settings, and that's very much a strength of this play. The set has a very lived-in feel, but also elements of style provided by knock-offs of the kind of art Stein and Toklas collected—a Gris, a Cézanne, and Picasso's celebrated portrait of Stein (altered to bear a resemblance to Nicol-Blifford). Though not overtly literary, the repartee bristles, anchored by Nicol-Blifford's somewhat drunken Stein, apt to say whatever she likes, veering from solid self-confidence to bathetic insecurity. She seems to use speech as weapon and shield and, of the others, Hellman is the least indulgent. Rodriguez's Hellman is brittle and cautious and never seems quite comfortable. This is clearly not her scene. Her gradual acceptance of the stakes of the situation is the main dramatic movement in the second half, centering on Bernadette and the group's fears for her future, given her horrific past experience, told by Victoria with a cold detachment that escalates into stricken empathy.
Under the effective direction of company member John Strano, Little Wars commands well the rhythms of, at times, seven-persons conversing. There are little contretemps, such as a deliberately spilled drink, someone locking herself in the bathroom, and Gertrude offstage long enough for Lago's Alice to hold court. McCasland has no need to make any of the women a villain, and so each get their moment to play upon our sympathies. Hellman holds out as a skeptic longest, and, as Bernadette—who brackets the play with a little narration—informs us, it is from Hellman's writings (Pentimento) that we learn more about the valiant and deliberately mysterious Mary/Muriel. A psychiatrist, she is played by Abby Klein with much self-possession and sangfroid, while her always attentive gaze may be in part her author's, looking on at each complex personality as an interesting case study.
The ultimate concerns of the play have a strong thematic undercurrent that—alas—will always be relevant. The plight of refugees often entails brutal conditions in a homeland that must be abandoned, where safety is a matter of trusting others whose commitment to dangerous aid may be sentimental, political, personal. Here, the story of Bernadette stirs all the women present to action and McCasland clearly intends it should similarly stir the audience. The little wars tend to be overshadowed by major wars and the carnage they cause.
Little Wars
By Steven Carl McCasland
Directed by John Strano
Producer and Production Stage Manager: J. Kevin Smith; Production Design: John Strano, J. Kevin Smith; Set Construction: Rich Burkham, Tony Adinolfi; Scenic Artist: Donna E. Glen; Lighting Design: Adam Lobelson; Costume Design: Liz Saylor
Cast: Abby Klein, Ash Lago, Margaret Mann, Deena Nicol-Blifford, Sandra Rodriguez, Lynnette Victoria, Jodi Williams
New Haven Theater Company
March 5-7, March 12-14, March 19-21, 2026