The Confessions

I may have just seen one of my contenders for best play of 2023. This is a feminist history told through the biography of one woman, beginning in the midst of the Second World War in Australia and ending up in London in the present day.  I understand the play was inspired by conversations the playwright, Alexander Zeldin, had with his mother and her peers during lockdown.  Alice has an ordinary life in many ways but this is also a really effective illustration of the development in women’s lived experiences over the past 60 years. Despite the potential for it to become a dry and clinical or theoretical narrative, its episodic nature gave the opportunity to show what felt like real family and friendship moments.  The constant setbacks in so many different ways each time she thought she had got free were really effective and I liked the interweaving of art too.  I’d love to know how many of the incidents happened and how many are a version of the truth for dramatic effect  (as commented in the play, there can be more than one version and they can all be true).  The two Alices on stage worked really well, one living the experiences, the other usually observing, sometimes commenting but also stepping in to the action too.  This was particularly effective in the sequence following the sexual assault, which made it feel like this was a bit of wishful thinking but none the less effective and cathartic for that.  You could hear a pin drop during that couple of minutes.  That, and a couple of other moments were incredibly moving and more than once I got a lump in my throat, but it was also warm and funny too with some proper laughs, particularly early on.  

The performances were all excellent, not just from the two Alices (Amelda Brown and Eryn Jean Norvill), but also the other cast who doubled and tripled roles to great effect.  I particularly liked the doubling of Alice’s traditionalist mother and the hardline feminist Eva (Pamela Robe).  But the other pairings brought a lot of questions and contradictions and food for thought too.   An interesting interpretation of how grim it can be to be a woman, but then also how joyful too - the play’s arc shows how far we have come, but also how some things stay the same.. I wonder what a similar story would look like if we gave it another 60 years given the current pushbacks against rights and freedoms. 

This was a good audience too (apart from the one person who felt the need to say ‘ooooh’ when confronted with the nudity on stage at that particularly powerful moment).   The people around me had all bought their tickets on the day like me, although there were still some empty seats behind.  We had a nice bit of theatre geek bonding before the performance started.  Just as well, as at just under 2 hours without an interval, there was a dash for the loos at the end and so no time for more pleasantries. 

At the Lyttleton NT until 4th November. A small story with a bit heart, and highly recommended!