Bombshells
‘Bombshells’ by prominent
Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith is a fast paced, witty series of
monologues from six different females characters, ranging from frantic stay at
home mum, to confident teen, and aging widow. The characters of Meryl, Tiggy,
Mary, Theresa, Winsome and Zoe, were all played by Christen O’Leary. As often
seems to be the case in this kind of show, the character’s lives all interact
at some stage, albeit briefly in some cases.
‘Bombshells’ showcases O’Leary’s
stunning versatility. Not simply through the addition of singing and dance to
the spoken monologues, but through her characterisations, from accents to body
language. Each character was distinctly different, brought to life by O’Leary’s
significant talent. Some of the characters were more ‘real’ and allowed the
audience to really empathise and connect with the performance, however. ‘Meryl’,
for example, presented a non-stop, almost hysterical internal voice monologue
of the thought processes of a stressed and anxious suburban mother. O’Leary
barely took a breath during this entire scene, and her performance captured the
nature of the sometimes irrational and cruel inner voice that we have all
experienced in times of stress. ‘Tiggy’s’ presentation that highlighted the
unlikely similarities between raising cacti, and relationships, was
heartbreakingly intense and ‘Winsome’s’ monologue, in contrast to the others,
was calm and dignified, while dealing with concepts of loss and loneliness, and
joy in the unexpected. The characters of ‘Mary’, ‘Theresa’ and ‘Zoe’ were more
stylised and less ‘real’ – it was harder to get lost in their story,
particularly Zoe, where her stage persona and subsequent vocal performances
were somewhat distracting from the individuals actual story. This was definitely
more about how the characters were written than O’Leary’s portrayal however,
which was consistently impressive.
Some aspects of the set design
and staging were a little confusing. The set was relatively simple, consisting
of a small dressing room-like area, with a traditional theatre lit mirror and a
rack for costumes on stage right, a photographic seamless white backdrop in the
centre and an armchair on stage left. Several photographic studio lights were
also placed around the stage. The show
began with O’Leary seated in the armchair and appearing to be learning her
lines, reading a script and running over and over (and forgetting) what turned
out to be the first few lines of the first monologue, before drifting off to
sleep. Once the first character monologue began, I kept expecting that the
relevance of that opening would be explained, but the concept was never touched
upon again. The appearance of the set as a photographic studio was also not
explained, other than that each monologue ended with a flash, and a photograph
of that character would appear on the backdrop. It was unclear why ‘Meryl’ had
a series of ‘photos’ taken throughout her monologue – that didn’t happen again
with the other characters. Having not seen a performance of ‘Bombshells’
before, I would be curious to know how much of this staging related to the
script, and how much was David Bell’s directorial input. This staging appeared
to draw attention to the artificiality of the theme – to highlight the
‘performance’ aspect, rather than allow the subtle connections between the
characters to drive the story. The ‘dressing room’ effect did provide an ideal
location for O’Leary to create each character, with minor costume, makeup and
accessory changes. A single item of clothing for each scene was used
successfully to create a distinct character.
Sound and lighting was minimal,
but used to good effect. As well as the photographic flash effects, the
lighting was used to create an interesting shadow effect during ‘Mary’s’ dance
scene and to highlight ‘Zoes’ cabaret style performance, and sound was used to
accompany several musical components of the monologues, and to provide
additional characters, such as the teacher announcing ‘Mary’s’ talent show.
The script itself was highly
entertaining, with lots of laughs, particularly during the ‘Mary’, ‘Tiggy’ and
‘Winsome’ monologues. This may have
related as much to the stronger relationship the audience felt with those
characters, as it did to the actual comedic content of those scenes.
‘Bombshells’ was both amusing and
thought provoking, and the energy and commitment that Christen O’Leary brought
to each character was amazing. A very worthwhile way to spend an evening –
playing at The Malthouse Theatre until the 28th.
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