Camden Theatre Reviews: Female of The Species

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The Review - THEATRE by SARA NEWMAN
Published: 28 August 2008

The female of the species is more deadly than denial

FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
Vaudeville Theatre

GERMAINE Greer dismissed playwright Joanna Murray Smith as “an insane reactionary” for making a farce of the acerbic author’s true-life trauma of being held captive in 2000.
But despite its disastrous distortion of feminist philosophy and the flimsy attempts at explaining present day cultural phenomena, Female of the Species is a tremendously amusing play.
It starts with Margot Mason (Eileen Atkins) racking her brain for the title of the book to follow her bestseller, The Cerebral Vagina.
Atkins presents a pompous, self-important intellectual, consumed by her own literary prowess and hungry for public exposure.
Enter Anna Maxwell Martin as the unhinged Molly, unannounced and unwelcome.
Molly’s mother abandoned her and committed suicide after following Mason’s tub-thumping polemics to the letter. Molly, who has handcuffed the ageing scholar to a table, now wants redemption – either through taking Mason’s life, or in the form of an apology.
Mason’s wearied, unappreciated daughter Tess (Sophie Thompson) pines for a real man.
Seeking repose from slaving away at home, Tess leaves her children unattended, leading her sap of a husband to follow her into the lion’s den.
Finally the butch cabbie comes in to save the day and offer his pearls of wisdom; Atkins acquiesces to the macho man’s take on the social ills caused by feminism .
Murray-Smith’s facetious contribution to the debate can be summed up thus: feminism is inherently flawed because it provokes hostility.
Some worthwhile points are hinted at: the responsibility of the author to their reader, the desire for sensationalism in the business of bestsellers and not least how the women’s movement could have done well to include men in its plans – but Murray-Smith barely even skims the surface.
Only the brilliant acting by Thomspon and Martin and some hilarious one-liners save this production from being a flop.
Until October 4
CNJ Booking Line
0870 040 0070

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