Big
Love
Peacock Theatre, Dublin
"There is no such thing as an original idea," writes
American playwright Charles Mee in his introduction to Big
Love, and indeed his play is a pastiche of ideas, forms and
styles. The play takes its story (50 women flee 50 fiancés)
from Aeschylus's 470BC tragedy The Suppliants. But the dramatic
exposition blends Brechtian formal address and Broadway musical
numbers with stand-up comedy, soap opera and more than a hint
of Hollywood hokum.
The result is a riotous retelling of age-old gender-war debates,
which finds a feel-good solution to cultural and social inscription
that is far darker than first appearances. Director Selina
Cartmell swaps her trademark visual style for a frothy physical
approach, an approach that is deeply appropriate to exploring
the genetic accident of genitalia that governs contemporary
and historic gender roles. Militant feminism meets macho masochism,
for example, in a violent, bloody dance expertly choreographed
by Ella Clarke and Paul Burke. And this physical approach
complements the more tender moments too: the delicately moving
image of tender embrace juxtaposed against the bloodbath.
However, the somatic emphasis is also problematic, as the
liberated female body is inevitably fetishised in the extended
underwear scenes.
Judith Roddy's aggressive approach to the neat and nasty Thyona
creates stark contrast with Kelly Gough's spunky, punky Olympia
and Ciara O'Callaghan's love-struck naïf, Lydia. However,
there is no suggested resolution beyond blind humanism, and
Roddy sits deflated in the final tableau; there will be no
punishment for Thyona but no future husband either. The multi-talented
supporting cast, meanwhile, commands a series of unforgettable
cameos, from the ever-chameleon Barbara Brennan to the doltish
Rory Nolan; from a camp and vampy Daniel Brocklebank to Aonghus
Óg McAnally's pleasantly surprising romantic hero.
However, while overwhelmingly entertaining, the mish-mash
pastiche of styles never quite gels, and Cartmell's production
stops somewhat short of its potential, as the small Peacock
space always threatens to swallow the spectacle. Yet it is
actually the direct addresses to the audience that jar the
most, as the audience is denied the neat and easy sweep of
the love story, even right until the end. Yet this final avoidance
of saccharine sweetness is precisely the point of Mee's clever
play; beneath the playful pink frenzy of contemporary liberated
gender politics lies a dark conditioning social system far
beyond our control.
SARA KEATING
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Irish
Theatre Magazine
Big Love By Charles Mee
Directed by Selina Cartmell
Set & Costume Design: Jon Bausor Lighting Design: Paul
Keogan Sound Design: Denis Clohessy With: Malcolm Adams, Brian
Bennett, Barbara Brennan, Daniel Brocklebank, Martin Brody,
Stav Dvorkin, Tim Gahan, Kelly Gough, Jose Miguel Jimenez,
Aonghus Óg McAnally, Robert McDermott, Chris McHallem,
Rory Nolan, Donncha O’Dea, Ciara O’Callaghan,
Marion O’ Dwyer, Judith Roddy.
Peacock Theatre, 5 July - 2 August 2008 Reviewed 29 July by
Harvey O'Brien
“Love is the Highest Law,” says the wizened ‘Mama
Italiana’ played by Barbara Brennan at the resolution
of Charles Mee’s adaptation of Aeschylus’ The
Suppliant Women. She is presiding at the ad hoc trial (or
is it an extradition hearing?) of the 50 Greek brides who
have murdered 49 of their newlywed husbands on their wedding
night in Italy, to where the brides-to-be had fled before
the nuptials only to be promptly pursued by their suitors.
It’s not as straightforward as even that, though. In
fact, there’s a civil counter-suit to be heard, because
one of the brides, Lydia (Ciara O’Callaghan) has reneged
on her pact with her sisters to kill all the men because she
actually likes her beau, Nikos (Aonghus Og McAnally). Her
vengeful sister Thyona (Judith Roddy) points out that their
cause was just and the act of execution a legitimate response
to what was forced marriage and therefore a constraint of
freedom . From that point of view Lydia’s breaking of
the pact is dishonourable because it was carried out in the
name of mere love.
In the end, it’s kind of a hung jury, as the old lady,
font of all wisdom, and therefore basically the persona of
Athena, says that these women, having no country, should make
their own laws, and that there is no justice and no punishment
the law can dish out that matters more than human feelings,
particularly sympathy. So, in one sense, love is the highest
law and Lydia is right; and on the other, lack of sympathy
for the women by the laws of their own country means that
it would be unjust to punish them for pursuing their freedom
-both freedom from forced marriage and the freedom to pursue
their own choice of feeling.
Heady stuff even at this level and, although clearly knee-deep
in gender politics at a level fitting the label ‘Greek
drama’, Mee’s adaptation throws a lot more into
the mix to add layers of interpretative and contextual scaffolding
to the classical edifice. This isn’t really ancient
Greece and ancient Italy, you see, because these women know
all about designer wear and spa breaks, and their husbands-to-be
arrive on stage dropped from a military helicopter wearing
combat gear and in the shadow of a banner bearing the legend
“Mission Accomplished”. Indeed.
Added to this mix is the staging, mixing faux-classicism and
minimalism with elaborate musical and dance numbers, bright
and colourful props wheeled on and off to create new scenes
and transform the setting, ranging from a pink parasol that
evokes a honeymoon fantasy to a grand piano and disco ball
that gives Daniel Brocklebank the opportunity to camp it up
as the Barbie-loving grandson of Brennan’s matriarch
(whose son, played by Chris McHallem is a kind of ineffectual
Italian billionaire). Director Selina Cartmell, quickly becoming
a label for bold and gripping stagecraft, keeps all of this
moving and never lets it degenerate into chaos. The blocking
is precise and stylish and the movement is carefully choreographed,
including some variants on classic choral style delivery as
the three brides repeat the same lines of dialogue in sequence
and follow a series of repeated movements as they do. There
is also stage combat played as a broad and bloody dance scene
, and some nudity and miscellaneous sexual coupling, none
of it not controlled and clearly directed.
The performances are evidently attuned to this sense of focus,
with Roddy’s intense and frightening Thyona putting
every man in his place (ironically, of course, Thyona is ideally
matched to her proposed beau, a domineering traditionalist,
as is romantic Lydia to her egalitarian suitor and shallow
Olympia to her big, dumb lover). The constructedness of each
character lends itself to such focused interpretation, and
it all adds up to a sense of a master-plan being executed
with great skill.
And yet this is where the real nagging questions come up.
There are so many things going on here and all of them seem
to be handled so well, why, at the end of it all, do we feel
more like we’ve been to a variety show than to a gripping
piece of theatre? Perhaps the show is so expressive about
so many things on so many levels, that there’s actually
a dearth of sympathy on the part of the audience for the plight
of these characters, and in moving from classical archetypes
to postmodern constructs, they have not gained the capacity
to actually generate the feelings that they present as a problematic.
Dr. Harvey O'Brien lectures in Film Studies in University
College Dublin and reviews theatre for culturevulture.net
© IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE
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