Peoples Republic of South Devon

Shady Ladies (theatre review)

June 1st, 2008

- Shady Ladies, the Theatre Upstairs, The Globe Inn, Clifton Road, Newtown, Exeter
posted by Cptn

All the best English writers are Irish, as the saying goes, and all the female role models are elbowed out of history, it seems. But in Shady Ladies, by Irish playwright Mary Halpin, at the Theatre Upstairs at the Globe in Exeter, the sisters are doing it for themselves - bigging themselves up that is.

Female visions from Irish history come to the hospitalised Niamh as they claw their way back into to the limelight, elbowing out the male literati, royalty and historians who confined them to the shadier annals of the past – where these women were attendant to the men. They are there to help, they say, cajoling her back to health.

For Niamh keeping schtum is translated as going numb. And she finds herself in a clinic, put there by her husband after their marriage disintegrates and actress Niamh is struck by stage fright so severe she can’t move. Hubby gets girlfriend and new apartment, while wife stays hospitalised and marginalised. But of course it’s not as simple as that.

There is a theme of literature and poetry running through the story - Joyce, Yeats and the scribbling scribes of history.

Rebecca Crookshank, as Niamh, is given the unenviable task of acting in an immobile wheelchair, with only a remote control for brief company. Madeleine Vose, who is the visions incarnate, is at the other extreme, having six characters to play. Both carry it off remarkably well, even the accents, which was even more impressive for Vose as she gearshifted through characters towards the denouement.

This is my living room says Niamh, and you believe her. The Theatre Upstairs has that kind of intimacy, which can so often be trampled on by over-exuberance on stage. Instead we were drawn into the historic and psychological machinations, which made the play more plausible than it might otherwise have been.

It’s a play of wonderful dialogue. This was the play that propelled Halpin to 12 years on the popular and successful soap Fair City, and that tightness of speech and the everyday-banter-on-acid that befits the daily soap-style conversation was already present, and going down wonderfully in her stage work.

This is a play inspired by being lost for words. For Halpin, she says it was through admiration of those on stage for not losing their words, and historically women’s words have been whittled away and a veil drawn on the female protagonists. Director Natasha Buckley has developed a space, albeit confined, where those Shady Ladies can step into the light.

The production is accompanied by an interview with the playwright and blog of the rehearsals on Theatre Upstairs website and it’s well worth a look in.

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Entry Filed under: Arts