The One Woman Plays

Corpus Playrooms, 1-5th February, 7pm, £5-6

Directed by Katherine Alcock and Polly Checkland Harding

[Rating:2/5]

If you told me that RADA decided to host their intake auditions at Corpus Playrooms this week, call them The One Woman Plays and allow audience members to sit in, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I didn’t leave the theatre feeling like I’d seen a play, I felt like I’d seen a showcase of undirected and under-rehearsed pieces of work – albeit performed by some fairly talented actresses.

The One Woman Plays are a series of monologues by women. Go figure. Some are angry. Some are happy. None have anything significant in common. The directors had an interesting idea: combine four of Arnold Wesker’s six female monologues, and separate the monologues from Four Portraits – Of Mothers, which was originally intended for just one actress. Unfortunately, it didn’t pay off. The result was a series of sporadic and unlinked pieces, which made for unsatisfying viewing.

Until the fifth monologue, I was essentially watching a series of confessionals by women who had been hurt by men, with the striking and subtle subtext that men can be mean. Woman number five however, played by Hannah Miller, appeared to be a blissfully happy housewife doing her weekly food shopping. A welcome light-hearted break, and a good comedy performance by Miller, but an odd choice of monologue nonetheless.

Don’t get me wrong: some acting was excellent. Stephanie Aspin gave the star performance, delivering her monologue about failed marriage with fragile poignancy. Aspin’s transitions between bitterness and deep hurt were subtle, and made her character utterly believable. Rosalie Hayes also delivered a solid performance as the chronically lonely wife and mother in therapy. She could easily have fallen into the trap of the clichéd ‘misunderstood wife’, but she avoided this by underplaying her inner turmoil until the end, where she finally cracked and delivered a harrowing scream.

The other monologues reflected a diverse range of characters. There was the single mother who loved her daughter, the old woman who regretted never having a family, the guilt-ridden mistress and the passionless novelist. And all of the actresses were good. They just weren’t great. This was a real shame, because with sharper direction and a better selection of monologues, the play could have been really interesting.

Ultimately, The One Woman Plays were let down by the total lack of attention to detail. There was no music between the different monologues. Lights regularly came on too early. There was no chemistry between the actresses. Mimes were sloppy, eye lines were off and none of the actresses held their closing positions for more than a split second. Just a little more direction and effort would have made the whole performance much slicker and much more enjoyable.

Kitchen sink dramas are difficult to pull off by their very nature, since they lack progression and the structure of a storyline. Ultimately, The One Woman Plays were not directed well enough to compensate for the lack of pacey monologue.