BABY JANE.
Directed and Adapted by Ed
Wightman from Henry Fuller’s novel What
Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Set design Andrew Kay. Lighting design Nathan
Sciberras. Sound design Neville Pye. Costume design Anna Senior. Properties
Antonia Kitzel. Canberra repertory. Theatre
3. February 20 – March 8 2025. Bookings: canberrarep.org.au or 6257 1950.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
 |
| Louise Bennet is Baby Jane |
Director Ed Wightman wastes no time in establishing a macabre grotesqueness to his adaptation of Henry Fuller’s psychological horror thriller What ever Happened to Baby Jane. Wightman’s adaptation opens this world premiere production of Baby Jane with the silhouette of a figure singing Come Out Come Out Wherever You Are. It is unnerving echoing the sinister sound of a scratchy recording from a bygone era. The lights fade up on Baby Jane (Louise Bennet), now an aging spinster, dressed in the girlish outfit of the Edwardian Era, complete with ringlets. The presence of a taunting father (Michael Sparks) provides a chilling tone of psychological abuse. It is a bizarre prelude to Fuller’s exploration of the fragile nature of the human psyche.
Wightman’s adaptation is faithful
to Fuller’s account of two sisters, living together in a Hollywood mansion
after a mysterious car accident that left movie star Blanche (Victoria Tyrell Dixon) paralyzed and
confined to a wheelchair and her sister Jane, a has-been child vaudeville performer
with delusions of regained stardom, Blanche’s resentful full time carer. The
stage is set for a psychological drama, fuelled by jealousy, inflamed by anger
and resentment, tormented by paranoia and psychotic in its delusory
imaginings. By the time that the
immobile Blanche reveals the truth of the car accident to Jane, the damage,
mental and physical is irreversible and neither Fuller nor Wightman can offer
an optimistic resolution. A father’s abuse turns a daughter to a victim who in
turn enacts abuse upon a helpless victim with her own terrible secret. The
house with barred windows is a prison of the flesh and of the mind. Only the
housekeeper Luisa (Andrea Garcia) presents some normalcy in this disturbed
household. Musician Edwin Flagg, who answers an ad by Jane for a pianist to
work with her on her dream of revival strikes a strange figure as single man,
living with his mother and partial to alcohol. And through it all is the memory
of the draconic father.
Under Wightman’s assured and
insightful direction, his cast create characters that are identifiably real.
Although the production recalls the style and atmosphere of Robert Aldrich’s 1962
film with Bette Davis as Jane and Joan Crawford as Blanche, Canberra Rep’s staging of Wightman’s adaptation is particularly
pertinent to a time when the escalating mental health problem in society is a
challenging and increasing concern. Victoria Tyrrell Dixon and Louise Bennet
as the two sisters locked together in a psychological nightmare give stellar
performances that are so very different
and yet equally compelling. Tyrrell Dixon’s powerless victim evokes instant
sympathy with her performance of an incapacitated former star, glued to replays
of her former triumphs. Bennet’s Jane is a ricocheting performance of complex
mental states. At once vitriolic in her outbursts or childishly absurd in her
desperate recollection of her vaudeville days, Bennett charts a performance of
psychotic complexity. Wightman, assisted by Neville Pye’s haunting sound design
skilfully navigates the relationship and the suspense of unpredictable
reaction. Tyrrell Dixon and Bennet receive excellent support from Garcia as
the concerned housekeeper, Cullen as the odd musician and Sparks as the
catalyst of destructive psychological influence.
Wightman claims on the playbill
that his main aim in adapting Fuller’s novel faithfully was to make it work as
a piece of theatre. He achieves this admirably. My only criticism is the
repetitive scene betweem Jane and Flagg
that could do with some judicious editing, coming as it does immediately after
the interval and, though expertly performed by Bennet and Cullen tends to lose
dramatic tension, which is the enduring impact of this production.
Canberra Rep has yet again
excelled with its production values. Andrew Kay’s realistic set design, so
effectively realized by the construction team provides the perfect setting for
this replica of the Golden Age of Hollywood. It is also excellently captured in
Anna Senior’s costume design. All in all Rep’s production is a triumph of
authenticity and riveting theatricality.
On one level Rep’s production of Baby Jane is an absorbing piece of
well-made theatre that will keep audiences entertained and engaged from
beginning to end. On another it is a lesson in individual responsibility to consider
the consequence of our actions on our own and others’ mental health.
On whatever level it is a
production to be highly recommended.
