Reviews: What the Women Did @ Southwark Playhouse

What The Women Did

Southwark Playhouse, January 24, 2014

            If I had to look for a common thread of themes for the ’13/’14 season at Southwark Playhouse, I would be hard-pressed not to say ‘double-casting’. What the Women Did is a triple bill of three short plays set during the first World War, Luck of War, Handmaidens of Death and The Old Lady Shows Her Medals, all focusing on the experiences of the women who were left behind in England.

            Each of three plays featured a different generation of women during 1915 up until 1918 after the war. Luck of War gave insight into the confusion that followed when soldiers went missing and their wives were left to believe the worst. The second play of the night, Handmaidens of Death, seemed almost a cautionary tale of bitter young women who never had a ‘boy’ during the war to be careful what they wished for. Finally, the evening closed with a focus on mothers’ who’s sons were fighting in the war as The Old Lady Shows Her Medals told the unorthodox tale of a not-quite mother and son relationship and the ownership of war that comes from sacrificing a loved one.  

            Because of the nature of putting on three different plays, and the small size of companies today, double-casting actors was necessary for this project. One actor who appeared in each piece and as the male lead in two was Simon Darwen. Impressive in his transition from a bitter and injured English soldier to a rough young Scottish man of The Black Watch, from footless to kilted, with two completely different accents, Darwen was able to deliver completely separate characters for these two very different pieces. Also impressive in their portrayal of two completely separate characters was Mia Austen, playing a young ‘munitions girl’ in Handmaidens of Death and then switching drastically into a hilariously pompous almost elderly mother of a soldier in final show of the night. With a simple change in costume, voice and physicality, Austen somehow aged herself about forty years during the fifteen-minute interval.

            With three plays taking place in the span of just over two hours, an audience might expect a very simple set with minimal props and changes, but Set Designer Alex Marker was more ambitious than that. What at first appeared a simple box set of the inside a home, changed quickly to the outside of a tea and lemonade café for the second piece. The set again transformed before the audiences’ eyes to the interior of a London Apartment similar to but with noticeable differences from the first interior at the beginning of the third piece. By creating three noticeably different sets, Marker gave the audience a clear distinction from piece to piece, so that even if an audience member had not received a programme, they would have still understood the transition to a completely different work. 
            This year marks the centenary of the Great War, and thus this play was supported by Arts Council England as well a number of other Feminist and Charitable Foundations. Often times when we remember back to that time, our thoughts are with the soldiers who fell, but we often forget the women they left behind. What the Women Did is a poignant and heartfelt look at the lives of the women working and waiting at the home front. Each play originally premiered between 1917 and 1918 and the writing is not a style most modern audiences are accustomed to, but the dedication of the company gives clarity, truth and a voice to a time that should never be forgotten.