8 WOMEN - Mockingbird Theatre Company.

 

Maxine Eayrs (Pierette) and the cast of "8 Women"

Set Design/Lighting/Direction: Chris Baldock

Translation/Costume Design/Asst.Director: Celine Oudin

Rehearsal Room, Belconnen Arts Centre 10^th – 19^th October 2024

Performance on 16^th October reviewed by BILL STEPHENS

Liz St Clair (Granny) in "8 Women"

A new arrangement between Chris Baldock’s Mockingbird Theatre Company and the Belconnen Arts Centre will see Mockingbird Theatre Company become the resident theatre company with the Rehearsal Room at the Arts Centre transformed into a viable theatre space for productions, classes, workshops and special events in 2025.

As a pre-curser of the potential of this arrangement Baldock has come up with an ambitious production of a French play by Robert Thomas, given a brand-new translation by cast member Celine Oudin, with terrific roles for eight female actors.

Very much in the oeuvre of an Agatha Christie murder mystery the play vacillates between farce and melodrama with a plot that revolves around murder, greed and adultery as it follows the reactions of an eccentric family of woman and their employees when the family patriarch is discovered dead with a knife in his back.

Of course, each of the women becomes a suspect. Each has a motive and a secret to tell.

Celine Oudin (Gaby) -Liz Caddy (Catherine) - Liz St.Clair (Granny) - Jane O'Sullivan (Augustine) - Maxine Eayrs (Pierette) in " 8 Women"

Given the obvious limitations of the Rehearsal Room, Baldock’s setting was elegant and surprisingly substantial, with the audience seated on three sides of the action. The main action took place in the central acting area decorated with handsome antique furniture and glassware, with a raised area across the back of the room leading to the door of the bedroom in which lay the body of the murdered patriarch. The other side provided an exit to other unseen areas of the mansion.

Acting styles and accents varied between characters, leading to initial confusion as to whether the play was meant as a serious murder mystery or a farce.

Liz St Clair and Jane O’Sullivan, on the side of farce, delivered delightfully over-the-top performances as the no-nonsense Granny, and Augustine, the relative determined to be misunderstood by everyone around her.   

Sporting a genuine French accent, Celine Oudin as Gaby, and Maxine Eayrs, without accent, as interloper Pierette, both offered strong, stylish performances very much on the side of a serious who-done-it, as did Carole Wallace as Madame Chanel and Emily Borgen as Suzon.  

Both Liz Caddy as teenager, Catherine, and Catherine Elias as housekeeper Louise, took time to find the correct level of vivacity and insolence required by their roles.

Jane O'Sullivan (Augustine) - Catherine Elias (Louise) - Liz Caddy (Catherine)
in "8 Women"

However, it didn’t take the audience long to catch on, so that the numerous cliché revelations about being trapped by the snowstorm, the missing gun, the key that no longer opens the door, the car that won’t start, the dog mysteriously killed and the cut telephone lines being just a few, were greeted with gales of laughter.

Not the serious drama intimated by the pre-publicity but nevertheless a delightfully entertaining evening of theatre, “8 Women” proved an enticing introduction into a potentially exciting new theatrical collaboration and a welcome entry into Canberra’s already vibrant theatre scene.

                      Photography by Chris Baldock - Ned Swann - Catherine Elias 

       This review also published in Australian Arts Review. www.artsreview.com.au