Extra!_Extra!_Theatre_Review_T_Lindon_Believe_New_End_Theatre

LMP in association with New End Theatre and Richard Jordan Productions Ltd

BELIEVE

Starring Linda Marlowe

Written by Matthew Hurt

Directed by Gavin Marshall

New End Theatre

17 January - 2 February 2008

“The Old Testament God is a God of war. And war is a man’s game. But what of the women?”

Matthew Hurt’s Believe looks to explore the female perspective on War and God as four re-imagined (and somewhat modernised) Old Testament figures tell their bloody tales. Rahab, a ballsy whore in a modern day war zone, who has seen all colours of mankind and its foibles lying on her back. Widowed army wife, Bathsheba, follows. A prim woman, who appreciates “the lack of sentimentality about the military” but is haunted by her husband and murdered, twitching infant. Judith is a seductive warrior, taking a calm, premeditated seven steps towards beheading her sleeping husband Holofernes. Last is Hannah: a stoical martyr whose refusal to recant her beliefs leads her to literally become ‘an island’, surrounded by the blood of her sons.

Each monologue is treated very differently and the bare black stage manages to acquire a backdrop in the memory – contrasting the war-torn wreckage of Rahab’s world with the close-clipped lawns of Bathsheba’s. All four characters are very self-assured despite their ‘sins’ or the injuries perpetrated upon them. They are calm, intuitive and represent the qualities of the mindful women that create the backbone of past and present day community. What is common between them is that they are all damaged in some way by men/sex/war, and talk about sexual brutality, not just as a personal experience, but a fact of life. The audience is a privileged party, lucky to be taken into the confidence of each of these women, far from perfect themselves.

With no set and very minimal props the piece has the potential to be visually unimpressive, but the variation of Marlowe’s delivery keeps your attention focused, as each character has very clearly defined and differing physical mannerisms and pace. Costume is simple, modern and stays more or less the same throughout. An interesting addition to the production was the use of audio clips to set up each monologue. The piece opens with a babble of radio voices, news audio clips, and children speaking in various languages: the soundscape of a Basra or Sarajevo, reminding us that present conflicts are perhaps not so far removed from the fire and brimstone of the Old Testament.

This piece was undeniably written to provoke discussion, and I hope to please director Gavin Marshall in what will now be an obvious unearthing of some feminist angst! …Rahab’s unlikely sentiment: ‘‘rape’s not that bad after the first time” brings up the issue of the striking paradox in the production: it is a piece from the perspective of women living in a world dominated by men, yet the words flowing from the female performer’s mouth were clearly written by a man. The monologues are scattered with recurring imagery of the power of the penis: Judith’s ‘enormous fields of fragrant pricks’, the duality of penis = life, sword = death and man wielding both. Although the play is clearly and intentionally focused on the male dominance over our protagonists, it is just such a frequent choice of male writers to directly equate power with the male organ. The females end up using masculine imagery to express themselves, like Judith’s ‘pretty dresses’ that her father and husband pick out for her. In the writing of the piece, as in the stories within the monologues, the women have had the thoughts and choices of a man projected upon them, rendering them blank until they assert their independence.

This, however, is exactly what actress Linda Marlowe does with the piece. A founding member of 70s feminist icons the Sadista Sisters, Marlowe is the perfect figure to take this gender-conflict play forward. Her intense physical presence is what undeniably allows the female element to reclaim the piece, she physicalises the writing, brings the words into a female vessel and thereby makes it believable; her own. She captivates the stage, bringing each woman’s individual strength to light, and making it hard as an audience member to imagine another actress in her place.

The piece is triumphant, fatalistic, infuriating, sickening, inspiring – a myriad of the conflicts that typify the union of God and War. The female characters, though guilty of heinous crimes are rendered sympathetic, funny even. In the second monologue, Marlowe’s clipped speech and cool wit enables you to connect with an emotionally detached adulterer and child-killer, remarking on how she “capitalises her pre-menstrual mood swings” to clean. Judith is remorseless as she savagely murders her husband, triumphing at last by using ‘all the tricks she has employed in a lifetime of fighting in a rigged match’. The director’s choice of employing flamenco-dancing in the re-telling reconnects the brutality to the female element, and Judith becomes magnificent.

Believe is overall a very accomplished and thought-provoking production, definitely for adults who enjoy a challenge at the theatre. Stop in at the pub adjacent for a pint of wheat beer, and you will undoubtedly get engaged in a heated discussion, be it on War, God, or a certain reviewer’s post-university feminist rantings!