Joanna Murray-Smith’s The Female of the Species (Unifaun at St James) is a comedy that starts brilliantly with the audience being introduced to Margot Mason, a figure based loosely on Germaine Greer, who is suffering from writer’s block and is being pressed by her publisher, Theo, to come up with her new book.
Polly March’s performance must rank with her best technical achievements- Paul Xuereb
The writing here is funny and we get to like this popular and terribly ego-centric feminist who is very troubled by her predicament.
We learn much more about her and her writings, most famous of which is a book bearing the title The Cerebral Vagina, when her house in a remote part of the English countryside is invaded by Molly, a former student of Margot’s, who has a pistol in her handbag and is ready to do violence to her former idol.
Molly is a deranged young woman whose life has been seriously affected by Margot’s books and teaching. Her mother, also influenced by Margot, had given the baby Molly away as soon as she was born, and then committed suicide. Molly herself, following Margot’s idea that a woman aspiring to be a successful writer must stay away from bearing and bringing up children, had had herself sterilised only to discover that Margot thought she had no talent.
Things become more farcical and go on being farcical, with the arrival of Margot’s daughter Tess who is married and has three young children, thus earning Margot’s great disapproval. Tess and Molly find they have something important in common, their strong disapproval of Margot who by now has been padlocked to her desk and is now subjected to the two women’s concerted attacks which, however, she goes on repelling with spirit.
The farcical atmosphere is increased when Tess’s husband Bryan comes in, followed after some time by Frank, the taxi-driver who has driven Tess to her mother’s house and who feels very hurt by Tess’s indifference to the long tale he has told her about his wife’s ill-treatment of him.
The last ingredient of the farcical soup is Theo, Margot’s publisher, who is brought in mainly because he helps Tess solve the mystery of her paternity – Margot herself does not know who the father was.
The Female of the Species is in one very long act, and by the end I felt I had had enough of the spate of speeches produced by everyone in defence of their views in spite of farcical business concerning who is holding the gun from one moment to the next.
Even Margot’s not very convincing conversion to a sort of anti-feminism and her decision to write a book called The Vulnerable Vagina makes little impact, for at the end the strands in the plot are hastily knitted up by the author.
The play is directed by Chiara Hyzler who, while keeping the action moving, makes the cardinal mistake of directing Maria Buckle (Molly), Laura Best (Tess), Anthony Ellul (Frank) and Steve Hili (Bryan) to go somewhat over the top in their comical characterisations.
Polly March in the main role of Margot and Edward Mercieca in the minor role of Theo never make this mistake and as a result the former in particular with her straightforward interpretation plus her mastery of comic timing allows the character’s absurd conviction of her own near-infallibility and embarrassment as she deals with the problems she is facing, to emerge very strongly.
March’s performance must rank with her best technical achievements. Her attempt to overcome the handicap of her padlocked arms was an excellent example of comedy produced by entirely naturalistic acting.
Buckle’s Molly comes out somewhat unevenly as a characterisation. She starts off very well but the gradual revelation of her mental instability sometimes suggests a performance not entirely integrated with the character, and many lines sound as if there is no thought informing them.
What she does have in abundance is physical energy; she uses the stage space very skilfully.
Laura Best’s Tess is an angry young woman who has had enough of the domestic life she has been leading for some years. At one point she also voices unhesitatingly her desire for a vigorous sexual life, one she is not having with her husband.
The character’s core is certainly there, but the performance certainly needs some toning down in places.
Of the men, Hili’s Bryan is least satisfactory, coming out as a smiling boob and little else. Anthony Ellul’s Frank, on the other hand, comes out strongly as the husband who has allowed his feminist wife to be very much the minor partner in the marriage, and is now determined to be a brutal macho.
He could very wisely have done without his glaring and bulging eyes early in the scene where he reminded me too much of a Capitan Furioso in commedia dell’arte, but he certainly did much to dispel the ennui that had been gathering during Hili’s previous scene.
Mercieca’s Theo is not much of a part, but he brings out the publisher’s cool personality, and his deep-seated affection for his great author, Margot, without ever going out of style.
The play shows tonight at on Friday, Saturday and next Sunday.