Review: The Female of the Species by Joanna Murray-Smith at ACT-A Contemporary Theatre. Directed by Alison Narver. With Suzy Hunt, Renata Friedman, Morgan Rowe and Paul Morgan Stetler. Now through July 18.
Morgan Rowe as Tess Thorton, Renata Friedman as Molly Rivers, and Suzy Hunt as Margot Mason in The Female of the Species by Joanna Murray-Smith at ACT – A Contemporary Theatre. Photo: Chris Bennion.
Some comedic plays are witty-funny and some are gross-funny and some are “painful to admit I’m laughing at this tired old crap”-funny and some (a great many) aren’t really funny at all. Joanna Murray-Smith’s satirical farce on feminism and celebrity, The Female of the Species is occasionally witty, not really gross and frequently funny in a bad tv sitcom sort of way, but it IS funny, or at least the very talented actors in ACT’s production are very good at wringing every laugh out of the script. In lesser hands, this play could be a chore to sit through, but Suzy Hunt, the Queen of Comedic Scene Stealers-Seattle Branch, and the rest of the seasoned cast under the firm direction of Alison Narver guarantees an entertaining night at the theater. But don’t blame me if you leave the theater feeling guilty and a bit cheap for laughing at some very contrived situations, forced humor and canned joke squeezing. Enjoying this play is like a trip to In-N-Out Burger…it’s pretty tasty and well-prepared but it’s still just a greasy hamburger that will give you heartburn and make you fat.
But, Joanna Murray-Smith does have good intentions…it’s quite obvious she’s trying to write an Alan Ayckbournian or Joe Ortonesque witty/snarky farce with larger than life characters, outrageous situations and ridiculous conclusions. Sadly, Ms Murray-Smith can’t quite bring it off…she strives for The Norman Conquests or Loot and she ends up with situations and dialogue that seem filched from Are You Being Served? And while I love the antics of Mrs Slocombe and Company, the odd dichotomy of theatrical high farce structures and the low comedic antics and clunky sitcom joke set-ups don’t quite mesh into a coherent whole. The Female of the Species aspires to high art but Ms Murray-Smith wants to hedge her bets and make it appealing to white, late middle-aged, affluent theater goers and she loads the play with too many bad jokes and lazy and improbable character motivations and personalities. She’s not arty enough to be an artist and too mannered to be a commercial writer; it’s a clunky mix of aspiration and ambition that results in a confused piece of theater.
Suzy Hunt as Margot Mason in The Female of the Species by Joanna Murray-Smith at ACT – A Contemporary Theatre. Photo: Chris Bennion.
Happily, for Seattle theater goers, ACT hired a very capable director to smooth out the lumps in the source material, and even more importantly hired a very good cast of comedic actors to bring those lumps to life. The primary lump in the story is Margot Mason, a fiery, ham-hearted, feminist writer who has to deal with not only a bad case of writer’s block and the monstrous demands of her own superego, but the demands of an outraged and rather deranged former student who holds Margot hostage and threatens to kill her for the damage that she has caused the student in particular and the cause of feminism in general. Oh so wisely, ACT cast the wonderful Suzy Hunt as the mercurial and melodramatic Margot and Ms Hunt gives us her usual richly colored performance, playing the part as one part Germaine Greer, one part Gloria Steinam and one (or maybe, two) parts Tallulah Bankhead, tossing her mane of silver hair around and growling insults and one-liners like that famously egotistical and outrageous stage and screen actress of 70 years ago. Ms Hunt has been playing a lot of comedic drunks in supporting roles lately on local stages; it’s a nice change to see her in a lead and playing a sexy and vibrant woman who’s not passed out in the second act…other theater companies please take note and give her MORE big, juicy roles (but better written than this play, please…)
The other two ladies in the cast were also fine, especially Morgan Rowe as Margot’s disappointed and disappointing daughter Tess. It’s a larger than life role and Ms Rowe gives us a larger than life performance that threatened to teeter over the edge a time or two but she always managed to pull it back in the nick of time and she ended up an audience favorite. Renata Friedman as the deranged student has a tougher role; Molly is a character that has to start out the play as unlikable and threatening and gradually reveal herself to be both likable and non-threatening. Ms Friedman was successful in that journey but of the six actors in the play she seemed the least British; it wasn’t a question of accent or performance but physically she seemed the least British of the actors, too Capitol Hillishness and not enough Notting Hillishness, (and if “Hillishness” is not a real word, it should be…)
The ladies dominate this cast because they have the most stage time, (the actors enter one by one and the women have the stage for the first half) but the men are fine as well, especially the excellent Paul Morgan Stetler as Bryan, Molly’s milquetoast son-in-law and husband to Tess. It’s not a large part and it’s a bit silly and underwritten but Mr Stetler’s comedic talents as an actor give the character a lot of personality and some of the biggest laughs of the play and he is proof that great characters can do good work with inadequate material. In even smaller roles, Tim Hyland as a philosophical but macho cab driver and Mark Chamberlin as Margot’s very obviously gay (well, bisexual as the play proves) editor were also fine in roles that mainly serve as plot contrivances but they did bring strong and humorous performances to the stage and were suitable foils to the stronger female characters in the play.
Renata Friedman as Molly Rivers, Morgan Rowe as Tess Thorton, Paul Morgan Stetler as Bryan Thorton, and Suzy Hunt as Margot Mason in The Female of the Species by Joanna Murray-Smith at ACT – A Contemporary Theatre. Photo: Chris Bennion.
Oh, and a shout out to Robert Dahlstrom’s lovely set, the study of Margot’s country home…it was good enough to live in, and my Theater Plus One who lived in the UK for 30 years, gave it a thumbs up for authenticity (and she mostly liked the accents, too!). And, we both give a tepid thumbs up for the production itself…superb cast, a well produced production, but saddled with a contrived script and some not very astute or well-thought out observations about modern feminism and the feminist movement. There were a lot of laughs in the show, but they were a bit cheap…we both felt the need to shower and change the sheets after viewing The Female of the Species and we both hoped our next date would have a bit more character and certainty of conviction…or, at least drive a nicer car and take us to a more expensive restaurant…
-Michael Strangeways
About the Author: Michael Strangeways
