I’ve never really warmed to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s famous comment, that “Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
To make a difference, you’ll always have to challenge the status quo. But Ulrich’s comment seems to conflate the fight against patriarchal dominance with unethical action, as though it were men who determine what’s right and what’s wrong. It oddly privileges a male perspective, and has a whiff of the juvenile about it, expressing more the thrill of getting away with the naughty rather than the steel-in-the-spine determination to stand up for what you know is right.
(Skipping maths for a sneaky smoke as you hide behind the girls’ toilets versus abandoning work to march in the streets in front of armed men hiding behind uniforms.)
Of course, I’m being pedantic. Those who deal in words probably should be.
But we all need inspiration, and Well-Behaved Women delivers inspiration in bucket loads.
With music and lyrics by Carmel Dean (with additional lyrics by Miriam Laube), and directed by Blazey Best, the show presents famous women through the ages. Some are fictional, most are not.
There’s no narrative as such; each woman sings of the challenges they face, and the world they intend to make. We hear from inspirational women as varied as Boadicea to Malala Yousafzai. I could list them all, but part of the joy of the show is guessing who’ll be next. (Of course, at 70 minutes, plenty will be left out. Interesting factoid: a 3 min song for every woman who’s ever lived would take 165 billion minutes, or 940 000 years. And that’s without an interval.)
The musical approach is the perfect creative decision: the climb to inspiration is rarely by the ladder of logic but rather through emotional epiphany.
Dean’s songs are beautiful, and range in style from power ballad to musical comedy show tune to African American spiritual. The band is superb. (And I got to say, to go to a show where music is played live and to understand virtually every word is a rare treat.)
Four brilliant performers – Stefanie Caccamo, Zahra Newman, Elenoa Rokobaro and Sarah Murr – take on all the roles with consummate skill. (On the night I attended, Murr stood in for Ursula Yovich).
To give a sense of the thing, here are some standout moments:
Newman as Eve sets up the whole conceit, and is magnificently cheeky, bold and sassy.
Caccamo as Virginia Woolf sings of Judith Shakespeare, the imagined sister of the playwright, musing on how a woman of genius might have fared in the Elizabethan Age. It’s provoking and poignant. (And, if you haven’t read Woolf’s original version in A Room of One’s Own, do – it’s a game changer.)
Caccamo also excels as Mary Magdelene, the only woman at the table at the Last Supper. It’s witty, fun and delightfully satirical. Peter, pass the unleavened bread …. Peter, could you please pass the unleavened bread! Unlike the Magdelene of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice, this one’s not so much bewildered and awed by the divine, as bewildered the men are all so in awe of themselves.
Murr as Boadicea is splendidly ferocious, radiating a defiant, vital energy.
Rokobaro as Harriet Tubman is awesome. The famous African American abolitionist believed God spoke to her, and perhaps it’s true, because echoes of the divine still linger in this amazing performance.
The doubling and tripling of characters works wonderfully, not only showcasing the extraordinary talent of the cast, but evoking the shared experience of womankind and their dreadful, glorious inheritance.
This is a show about icons and role models.
Do they tell us how to behave?
No, they don’t make demands. (Hey, maybe they don’t even make history; after all, it is a rather nebulous phrase.)
What role models do is make suggestions, offer ways to navigate the mysterious mess that is Life.
So, we look backwards to find our way forward? Yes, the paradox is a recognition that we’re all in this together – and a show that draws attention to this is a true gift.
Paul Gilchrist
Well-Behaved Women by Carmel Dean
At Belvoir until 3 Nov
Image by Brett Boardman
Theatre Red 