In Dinner with the Duchess, Jan Alexandra Smith delivers a performance that is fierce, vulnerable, and utterly absorbing.
As Margaret, a virtuoso violinist grappling with her past and reputation, Smith is both formidable and fragile. “Margaret is a woman who has given everything to her art, and now she’s facing the consequences of that choice,” says Smith of her character. The Here For Now Theatre production, directed by Kelli Fox and written by Nick Green, dives deep into themes of self-acceptance, legacy, and the unrelenting passage of time.
Presented by Crow’s Theatre, this Toronto premiere marks a powerful moment for both Smith and audiences.“It’s raw, it’s painful, and it’s incredibly human”, says Smith.
Dinner with the Duchess opens with Margaret preparing for a rare interview, during which she will confront the consequences of choices made and events experienced over the course of her storied career. As her conversation with ambitious journalist Helen (Rosie Simon) over dinner then unfolds, past wounds are reopened, exposing tensions in Margaret’s personal and professional life. Oscillating between intimate recollections and confrontations, the events of the play cause Margaret to reckon with the sacrifices she has made for her music. As she struggles to maintain her composure, a past betrayal re-surfaces, leading to a powerful reckoning with the past and the expectations that have defined her.
“Does any of this actually matter?”
Margaret’s journey resonates deeply with Smith, who is herself an acclaimed actor, director and educator. “Margaret and I are of the same age. And I think I relate to the resistance she has come up against in her artistic career as a woman, having to fight extra hard for relevance,” Smith explains. It feels familiar “having to smolder but hold it together when you feel undervalued, patronized, taken for granted, disrespected, only by virtue of your gender.”
The tension between public perception and private struggle is also one that Smith embodies fully, drawing from her own lived experience. “I’ve had moments of sitting there wondering, ‘does any of this actually matter?’” Smith admits, in a direct echo of Margaret’s own doubts about everything she gave up for her art. But “then I remind myself: of course, it matters. It matters to the people who have felt overlooked. To the ones who have had to fight to be seen. To every artist who has poured their soul into something, only to watch the world move on without them.”
In the end, “Margaret’s story is painful, but it is also a testament to perseverance, to the stubborn belief that what we create is worth something—even if the world doesn’t always acknowledge it the way we want it to.”
Ultimately, the character of Margaret as realized by Smith is two things at once: a wonderfully idiosyncratic, specific individual and an archetype whose struggles reflect a broader societal reality. Dinner with the Duchess is a sharp commentary on the double standards faced by women – particularly in fields like the arts, where reputation and perception carry immense weight. The play dissects how women, especially those in classical music, are held to stringent expectations not to exhibit “qualities that are probably accepted and sometimes respected in men, but not in women.” And the notion that an artist – particularly a woman artist – can be discarded after her prime is one that haunts both Smith and Margaret.
Trusting your partners
Smith’s initial decision to debut the role in the play’s world premiere in Stratford, Ontario last September was rooted in artistic trust and admiration. “Right off the bat, when Here For Now mentioned the names Kelli Fox and Nick Green, I was in! I didn’t even read the script. Then I read the script and went, ‘Oh no, what have I done?’” she laughs.
It was a deliberate deepening of the dynamic between Margaret and her interviewer Helen that ultimately prompted her to reprise the role for this Toronto premiere run. “Helen was more starstruck in our first go-through last summer.” Smith explains. “She had high stakes involved in the interview, but she wasn’t as tough, and she wasn’t as much of an obstacle. She wasn’t as self-assured. She wasn’t as arrogant in her own way as she is in this run.” Smith relishes “the way that “these two women go head-to-head. Now she’s a tougher opponent.”
The shifting power dynamic electrifies their exchanges, as Margaret tries to pick her way through a minefield that stretches between public persona and private vulnerabilities. As Margaret, “it’s a challenge to have this interview with her. At the end of the day, I can’t just kick her out of the house because I need to be represented in a good light at all costs. If I kick her out…I will be buying into a narrative of a very unpleasant, difficult woman.” And so – to try to manage the power that Helen has over all the things that Margaret is feeling inside, “which is just nothing but turmoil and pain” – Margaret fights to remain composed in the face of questions that fly at that trauma like guided missiles.
A magic moment
One of the most moving moments in the play is a scene where Margaret, seeking what Smith calls “a think and a reset” during the interview, strides to her condo balcony, which is situated behind the audience in a back corner. While there, at a moment when almost the entire audience is watching the stage, not her, she witnesses an unsettling moment between her husband (David Keeley) and Helen. “Margaret probably would have entered back into the apartment sooner,” explains Smith, “except that she heard Helen laugh. She could really hear the familiarity between the two of them, and decides to just take a moment to eavesdrop – and make sure that she’s actually seeing what she thinks she’s seeing.”
From the shadows, Margaret’s face darkens as her husband speaks a devastating truth: “What he is identifying is that Margaret used to be far more available emotionally and more attractive as a friend and lover.” And “by virtue of the fact that you have to look really, really, really hard to see that in her still, he’s saying that he doesn’t consider her to be that anymore.”
Exquisitely rendered by a silent Smith, this excruciating moment of realization is Margaret’s worst fears spoken aloud. “It’s hard. It’s hard to hear that you have become tough. It’s hard to hear that you have become brittle, and to feel like you also don’t have a choice.”
Words and tempo
At the heart of Dinner with the Duchess is the tension between how we wish to be remembered and how we are remembered. For Margaret, this question is wrapped up in the moniker ‘the Duchess’, whose origins and weight Margaret defers discussing until she no longer can. When she finally confronts its impact on her life’s work, it is a moment of savage vulnerability. “Every time she hears it,” Smith’s eyes flash,”it’s like an echo of all the times she’s been disregarded, dismissed, and made to feel like a footnote in her own career. It strips her of everything she has built, everything she has sacrificed for, and reduces her to a single, superficial label. And the worst part is, once a name like that sticks, it’s nearly impossible to escape.”
Despite the emphasis on words in this play, Smith credits director Kelli Fox for surfacing the deeply musical rhythm of Nick Green’s writing. During rehearsals, Smith was staring down the challenge of her final monologue. “It has very little punctuation. It’s a two-and-a-half-page, three-page monologue… I just had to look at it and go, ‘What is this? Is it a giant rant? Is she unhinged? Is there a linear progression to this?’” Fox pointed out how each section of Margaret’s final monologue – like the different parts of a musical composition – carries its own distinct tempo. It shifts from “1, 1, 1, 1”, which is “a very steady rhythm” to “1 and, 1 and, 1 and, 1” when “it’s exciting and the tension is building”. Then “by the time we get to the unpredictable, crazy part” of Margaret’s emotional unburdening, “the 1-and-a, 1-and-a, 1-and-a,1…, it just spills out, and it’s all over the place, and the rhythm goes right off the rails.”
As an actor, Smith is quick to acknowledge that she could not “stand outside of” the play and analyze the tempo the way Fox could. But yes, oh yes, she can embody it: “Nick has written the music. Kelli has conducted the music. I’m just going to be the violin.” The performance is a virtuosic tour-de-force, bringing the audience to a shattering place.
Being and not being Margaret
In Margaret, Smith sees a path that she could have taken, but chose not to. “I think I just get Margaret… more than I want to admit.” But Smith is happy to report she has sidestepped Margaret’s crisis.
Unlike Margaret, who has sacrificed everything for her art and is now reckoning with what it has cost her, Smith has deliberately chosen a life that includes other fulfilling pursuits. “I think at a certain point you realize that you need balance. Margaret didn’t find that, and she’s left with this emptiness, this question of ‘Was it worth it?’”
“I just decided that I don’t want that. That I want my life to be defined by other things – because that’s just too lonely. It’s too upsetting.” But happily, this real-life happiness poses no obstacle for audiences seeking a devastating masterclass in nuance and emotional depth. Smith inhabits Margaret so vitally that it is impossible to imagine anyone else in the role, making Dinner with the Duchess an absolute must-see – and even experience more than once. The production is on stage at Crow’s Theatre until February 9, 2025. Reserve tickets on crowstheatre.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
