Rachel Sleek Bañuelos and Sierra Bryn Photo by Tom McGrath/TCMcG Photography

The story takes place on the Revenge, where Captain Calico Jack pays Vanessa, a tavern owner in Nassau, both to keep him apprised of the Governor's strategies for dealing with pirates and to help him to press gang crew. This brings "Mark" on to the ship, when the Governor's economic policies force Vanessa to choose between her lover and her livelihood.

Mark is immediately struck by "Andy," who is poised to become Jack's second in the wake of the crew's losses to skirmishes with the British. The two dance awkwardly around their mutual attraction, which is complicated by Andy's ongoing relationship with Jack, until Andy takes the plunge and reveals herself to be Anne. Mark responds in kind, revealing herself to be Mary, but things are not quite so simple.

Although Anne and Mary enjoy a blissful month as lovers, a host of secrets threaten the blossoming relationship. Moreover, Anne's relationship with Jack is complicated not only by her (at first) secret liaison with Mary, but by the fact that Jack's own gender uncertainty is something Anne simply can't seem to understand. This comes full circle to threaten the relationship between Anne and Mary when Mary expresses a similar inner turmoil, born (at least in part) of the fact that her mother forced her, as a child, to play the role of a boy so that her mother could claim an inheritance.

The play has the potential to offer a thoughtful, moving story about the complexities of attraction, gender identity and presentation, and queer ways of moving through an oppressive, damaging world. But that potential is undermined by the fact that SMJ seems to envision the play as also being a laugh-a-minute farce.

This is not to say that emotional exploration and comedy can't or shouldn't mix. Queer stories, in particular, need lightness and joy to counter phenomena like the "kill your gays" trope as well as the general tendency to focus only on the trauma and misery that queer people (particularly trans people) experience at the hands of a violently queer-phobic society.

But SMJ's play involves a great deal of tonal whipsawing between quiet, emotionally important moments and broad and bawdy comedy. Complicating this uneven tone, the play seems to have too many narrative irons in the fire, and its attempts to blend loose history with contemporary touchstones often fall flat.

For example, Anne's (possibly) ex-husband James is working with both the local Governor and priest to track her down and extract her from the pirate life, mostly so that James can save face. The priest is played as the head of an evangelical megachurch, and his irregularly delivered "sermons" are packed with unfortunately familiar transphobic, misogynist rhetoric. Similarly when the Governor interacts with James, he draws on stock manosphere language.

Certainly, these contemporary anti-queer sentiments stem from a long history of patriarchal society and bigots in the here and now mythologized tradition to prop them up, but in the context of this story, the forces SMJ spends time parodying are less interesting than the struggles that Anne, Mary, and Jack are facing with gender and sexuality. And from a simply practical standpoint, the shifts in tone, scene, and temporal focus come so rapidly (and sometimes without seeming purpose beyond making sure that there's not too much emotion uninterrupted by comedy) that it's often hard to follow what is going on.

All of this said, the show does have lots to like, and the production is very good. Amy C. Gilman's scenic design leans into the cartoonishness and fun. Various areas on the ship, the priest's quarters, Vanessa's tavern, and so on, are set on a planked platform raised about two feet above floor level. This is actually made up of three components, so that two can be swung out and separated from the main, upstage platform to signify the more private confines of Anne and Mary's quarters. Various space-conservative pieces are moved in and out to shift the action from space to space, alleviating some of the confusion that's hard-wired into the text.

Laura J. Wiley's lighting design is terrific. The baseline color scheme is a wash of greenish blue on the ship, and the subtle contrast with the harsher, whiter lights of the spaces on land supports the idea that the main characters paradoxically find shelter and safety at sea. Wiley also brings the rainbow disco lights as needed and accomplishes a number of precise, smaller-scale lighting cues that complement the swashbuckling fights (excellent fight direction by Carly Belle "CB" Cason) that are woven skillfully throughout the show.

Jennifer Mohr is clearly game to undertake the challenges of the show's tone in the costume design. Mohr encodes class into the costumes for the Governor and Anne's ex-husband, as well as the priest. She also heaps all of the tropes of the busty barmaid onto the character of Vanessa, which is not only funny in its own right, but also accrues comedy bonus points given that the same actor portrays the equally heightened Governor. Anne and Mary, interestingly, have subdued, uniform-like costumes that contrast with the sequins and flashy colors of Calico Jack, as well as "Chad" the ubiquitous, catty queen of a shipmate.

Rachel Sleek-Bañuelos (Anne Bonny) and Sierra Bryn (Mary Read) are terrific leads for this cast. Both are skilled in delivering the comedy, both verbally and physically, and both remain believable and moving when the play calls on them to portray their characters as real, lived-in human beings. It's to the credit of both that there is no cognitive dissonance for the audience as their stories shift between the two tones that often don't rest easily together in other facets of the play.

Stef Brundage's performance as Calico Jack is strong enough to show how much potential there is in the character and to make one wish that the play more consistently explored Jack's role in the tangled relationships that range from the professional to the sexual to the deeply emotional and back again. Brundage is undoubtedly funny and all-in on the burlesque aspects of Jack's character, but the handling of the character's gender-related conflict leaves one with an uneasy feeling that has much more to do with the writing than Brundage's skills.

William Delforge shows an impressive ability to flip the switch between the all-camp Chad and the dangerously lunk-headed, sulkily privileged James (as well as the mega-church priest). Delforge's Chad is a pure delight, but there are some moments when the character's tendency toward scene-stealing contributes to the sense that the play (and/or the direction) lives in fear of going too long without a big joke.

Brittani Yawn is howlingly funny as Vanessa and does delicate, successful work in balancing this with quiet rage at the establishment that oppresses her and forces her to be complicit in that oppression. Yawn does a delicate job of conveying Vanessa's genuine care for "Mark," even as she acknowledges Vanessa's inherently practical nature.

yo ho., a Babes with Blades Theatre Company production, runs through August 29, 2026, The Edge Off-Broadway Theater, 1133 W. Catalpa, Chicago IL. For tickets and information, please visit BabesWithBlades.org.