Review: WICKED SISTERS is a complex contemporary study of survival of the fittest in the framework of the female experience.

Griffin Theatre Company

Thursday 12th November 2020, 7pm, Reginald Theatre Seymour Centre

Alma De Groen's WICKED SISTERS, returns to Griffin Theatre under Nadia Tass' direction 18 years after it's premiere in 2002. Revisiting the work serves as a reminder that even though nearly two decades have passed, many of the issues that De Groen explored remain and society has barely made a dent in any progress on these issues.

The premise of WICKED SISTERS is that 50'something university friends Lydia (Deborah Galanos), Judith (Hanna Waterman) and Hester (Di Adams) have made their way up to Meridee's (Vanessa Downing) Blue Mountains home for a long overdue girls weekend following the death of Meridee's genius scientist husband Alec's death but things arent really as friendly as Meridee's North Shore manners would have you believe. While Public Relations manager Judith hasn't seen Meridee for years following a move do Melbourne and seems to have been shunned before a surprise invitation, scientist come hotel cleaner Hester's attendance is even more of a shock as the scruffy feminist invited herself to the reunion. Real Estate agent Lydia also lives in the Mountains and has had more contact with Meridee but even that familiarity seems strained once the surface is scratched. In what initially seems like an odd move, the gathering takes place in Alec's study which is in the process of being dismantled with his prized computer which is still processing his work and a few chairs and storage boxes of books and booze remaining. Issues of morality and sisterhood solidarity are unearthed along with the inequity of the effect of aging on the female population in terms of personal and professional lives. Analysis of the survival choices the women have made also forms a central thread of the story as the human reality is considered against Alec's study of whether an artificial life forms can evolve and survive and can be likened to life.

Whilst this work contains many interesting ideas, the overload does make it somewhat overwhelming but also underwhelming when the stilted speech and direction combine with awkward staging to lead to a work that quickly wanders away from its initial believability. Tobhiyah Stone Feller's design misses the opportunity to show the importance of Alec's computer and therefor the power of the man that caused so much chaos in the women's' lives, as the desktop screen, keyboard and mouse sit atop a simple frame table. The computer is purported to be so vital that the university want it running but the set up looks no bigger than a family computer set up with no back up power or larger mainframe computer cupboard that would still be applicable even in the modern age of smaller technology. Part of the screen 'critters' are eventually projected onto the windows as an expression of the science but in reality the impact diminishes to be akin to a screen saver and it seems odd that Alec would have really projected his work onto a corner window even though Lydia reacts to it. The degree that the room has been stripped also feels unnecessarily bare as it seems unlikely that the actual furniture of bookshelves and functional desk would be removed. It also feels incongruous that a successful scientist who is understood to have made a fair deal of money from his findings would have the odd assortment of chairs in his office particularly with a wife like Meridee running the home and keeping up appearances with the stream of Alec's colleagues, media and students visiting his home office. The asymmetrical stage is also skewed to the left of the space leading to scenes which potentially cause the right side of the audience to be disengaged with the The quartet of women do their best given the troublesome text of the script and the awkward directorial choices that have diminished any possibility of realism or moments of relatability which sadly works against the message as everything becomes too far-fetched. WICKED SISTERS is a work filled with a lot of twists and turns but unfortunately none that can really save the story.

https://griffintheatre.com.au/whats-on/wicked-sisters/

Photos: Brett Boardman

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