Veronica’s Score: 3/5
Released in 1956, the film Baby Doll, a collaboration between Tennessee Williams and Elia Kazan, saw the usual suspects pounding the pulpit because of the carnality depicted on screen. Of course, so many decades later, it’s hard to see what all the fuss was about.
This celluloid-to-stage reworking by Pierre Laville and Emily Mann feels less bawdy, but it retains the voyeuristic element. The attempt to make an earnest statement about female agency – and Trump’s deplorables – doesn’t quite come off, though director Shaun Rennie gives it his best shot.
The play, like the film before it, is a slice of the rural South. I often find when stage action is set below the Mason-Dixie line, it offers the perfect excuse for artists to ham it up – not unlike the oft-seen portrayal of Australian working-class characters– as if those involved don’t see it as worthy of getting right. My observation is a little unfair here as these roles were played initially as borderline caricatures though not as people without humanity.
Jamie Oxenbould’s turn as the luckless Archie Lee Meighan is as nuanced as Foghorn Leghorn, but he gets the best lines, and so the biggest laughs. It is undoubtedly a performance without vanity. As Archie, Oxenbould stumbles around the stage – he’s a drunkard – sick with lust for his young wife, the play’s titular Baby Doll (Kate Cheel). He’s still swigging from his bottle when he suspects he has become a cuckold at the hands of his Sicilian neighbour, Silva Vaccarro (Socratis Otto), who is out to exact his own brand of revenge.
Cheel and Otto have more scope with their characters, and their extended “seduction” scene in the middle of the play shows them to be actors in sync with each other. I can’t help thinking, Williams, a gay playwright, is having a bit of a laugh and skewering “straight” romance, but the duo makes it work. Rounding out the cast, the wonderful Maggie Dence does some lovely stuff as the dotty Aunt Rose Comfort.
The ever-reliable Verity Hampson (lighting) and Nate Edmondson (composition and sound design) contribute to the sultry mood. It is most appropriate Anna Tregloan’s set (also costumes) resembles less a dilapidated house and more a chicken coup.
You’ll either enjoy the antics of the cocks and hens in this Mississippi farmyard and go along for the ride or very quickly tire of it.
Veronica Hannon, Theatre Now
18 Oct – 16 Nov 2019
Venue: Ensemble Theatre
Theatre Company: Tennessee Williams
Duration: Approx 90 min (no interval)
Ticket Prices:
$38 – $78
plus booking fee
Various Dates (follow bookings Link For Details)
By Tennessee Williams
Nobody wants to hear that a chef-hatted, multiple-award-winning, ridiculously trendy Wolloomooloo restaurant is fully committed and can’t take a booking. When Sydney socialites and international A-listers wish to dine on the date they wish to dine on, it’s harder to finesse than the perfect soufflé.
In a dingy basement office far from the magic of molecular gastronomy, skilful reservationist Sam has to use her charisma and wits to keep over forty demanding characters happy… and most importantly, keep her job.
In an updated version of Becky Mode’s Broadway smash, director Kate Champion and comedy chameleon Contessa Treffone join forces to serve up a hilarious and fast-paced take on our modern obsession with food.
Playwright: Becky Mode
Director: Kate Champion
Cast: Contessa Treffone
Suitable for: Ages 4+ and their families
