Juliet’s line ‘Romeo, Romeo, where the f**k are you?’, got the Creative Curve Theatre Company’s new production of ‘Not Such Stuff’ by Chris Wind off to a striking start. Lines borrowed from Shakespeare were woven into a script written in his style, but with a modern take on the plots that eight of his female characters, reprised here, appeared in. You can hear our preview interview with Director Lorraine Spenceley here.
The show, on the second night of its three-venue, three-night run, this time at the Wickham Theatre Centre in Bromley (also home to Theatre 62), drew the audience into a cauldron of regret, pain, passion, and fury. Assembling in a wine bar presided over by Lady Macbeth (Kate Sandison) were Juliet (Sarah Kidney) from Romeo and Juliet; Kate (Alice Foster) from The Taming Of The Shrew; Marina (Layla Malik) from Pericles; Miranda (Anna Seabrook) from The Tempest; Ophelia (Christabel Wickert) from Hamlet; Portia (Susan Cunningham) from The Merchant Of Venice; and Regan (Niki Mylonas) from King Lear.
For almost an hour, these women usurped men’s place at the centre of the universe (a term used more than once) and from centre stage reflected on what Shakespeare wrote about them, and what he didn’t. That made, at times, tragedies more tragic, and added modern themes to sit alongside those conceived centuries ago by the Bard. A longer play along these lines could have helped by introducing the back story of each woman, which otherwise would be fully apparent only to someone familiar with each original work.
This was, too, a celebration of equality that did not extend to the amount of limelight for each actor. Lady Macbeth had few words, perhaps taking a rest after using so many to goad her late husband along the bloody path to regicide. Sarah Kidney’s lascivious, earthy Juliet (above) relished her saucy, sexy soliloquies and reminded us that the Bard did, indeed, do bawdy. Alice Foster’s bitter Kate, at first appearing in much-needed sunglasses, scowled her way through her reflections on parentage and marriage.
The women, who held in common the expectations of their time to obey, submit, and accept, thoroughly conveyed their collective resentment at how they were treated. Christabel Wickert’s haughty Ophelia (above) particularly dismembered the fallacy that ‘a woman’s love is brief’. Her line, ‘We seldom know what we are and less what we may be’ works, sadly, only too well even in contemporary times.
One of the actresses who said little, but with real fire in a memorable performance, was Layla Malik as Marina (above). We look forward to seeing and hearing her and her fellows who had smaller parts here in bigger roles in the future.
A Question and Answer (Q and A) session followed the performance (and a second excursion to the bar). This was a welcome feature, and as Alice Foster (above) pointed out in one answer, this play and its source material does have a ‘timeless quality’. The cast agreed that women have moved forward, but at the same time feel more vulnerable, especially with the incidence of coercive control. There was a view in the audience, after the Q and A, that the men present might feel emotionally battered after experiencing the play. That said, if better humans are to be nurtured, the issues aired in Not Such Stuff should not be left alone so that future historians ask why they were not addressed here and now.
Darren Weale and Jacqui Weale
17 March 2024
Images courtesy of Jon Louder Photography.
Bromley Buzz 