The Club

The all-female, three-actor version of Williamson’s forty-year old iconic play about men behaving badly gets treated to a full body reconstruction in this production. The words are the same but the satire becomes edgier and Tessa Leong’s direction and vision for the play brings a whole new physical comedy element to this play.

The strutting macho males of 1977 become the 2019 version of Spitting Image, with their awful hairdos, stylised stances and competitive male one-upmanship which is now both side-splittingly funny and incredibly sad. Louisa Mignone, Nadia Rossi and Ellen Steele create many memorable moments. Their ability and skill to move between two characters believably is praiseworthy.

I really enjoyed the first half, and there were times where this production really got its points across. There was a palpable sense of shock and the audience literally moved back in their seats when Jock casually talks about abusing his wife: “…when I got home Rosemary said, ‘ I think you met your match today,’ and I thumped her one. She apologised later…”

However, the second half lost its momentum; there were too many ideas in the mix. The actors spoke more and more directly to the audience rather than talking to each other. The characters literally became more and more like cardboard cut outs and as such lost a lot of the shock effect that comes from ‘casual’ statements from believable people. The actors were now switching between three and more characters, relying more on the wigs to identify their characters. The pace became more frenetic, and the time was switched to the present day. However, the women in this situation did not behave any better than the men, so I was left wondering what the message really was?

Also I have to ask, why did they change the set? What were the benefits to the production? For me it detracted from, rather than added to the play. It seemed as though the second half had been stuffed full of every idea that came to mind.

The audience appreciated the acting and the humour, but the energy and clarity of direction in the first half was lost in what became a farce rather than an edgy thought-provoking comedy.

If I had to describe this production in one word, I’d say “Interesting!”

Sally Putnam

Photographer: Chris Herzfeld