I remember being very excited reading about this play a couple of years ago. Bening was supposed to bring it to Broadway and, sadly, that never happened for a variety of reasons. The play opened in 2008 in London starring Eileen Atkins and finally it is getting its US debut at the Geffen Theatre starring Annette Bening.
This is a serious feminist play. Here’s a description:
Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith’s comedy about a renowned feminist author named Margot Mason and her tussles with a disgruntled student, a resentful daughter, her publisher, a cabbie and other characters combines lively debate about the evolution of feminist theory with good old meat-and-potatoes farce. Bening, of course, plays the force-of-nature feminist.
The OC Register asked Bening some questions about the play, feminism and the political context of the work.
Register: This play is a comedy but the issues being discussed – particularly the evolution of feminism and the conflict between its founders and the next generation – are quite serious, aren’t they?
Bening: No question about it. The issues were and are so serious and grave. Women had to take that kind of a stand because of what they were fighting and where we were. We’re not at that point any more. (This conflict) is what makes the play for me. All those issues are being thought about but within a context of humor. I’m so impressed with how she’s been able to get these issues in people’s mouths without it being preachy and overly earnest.
Register: Is there a meta-theme at work in the story?
Bening: The idea that the generation that comes up doesn’t fully appreciate what the older generation went through. They take for granted things that are in place that didn’t always used to be. That’s the way of the world, the ancient problem. She manages to get into all of that with this subject. We’ve come a long way in terms of our laws, but of course in many ways things haven’t changed. One thing she’s writing about is (something) that will never change: what makes men and women different.
Sounds like it will be a good second wave/ third wave exploration. I don’t recall seeing another play that has attempted it. It’s supposedly loosely based on an incident in Germaine Greer’s life but is not about Greer. I really hope it gets to NY.
Annette Bening Likes Getting Theatrical (OC Register)
I saw this play in my home town of Brisbane. Unfortunately, I hated it. I was originally going to stay away because I heard it was full of right-wing, backlash cliches about all the crimes that feminists are supposed to have committed. However, I relented out of curiosity, only to find all the complaints I heard were right.
These cliches include:
- that old feminists, not men, are the biggest problem for young women
- that a whole generation of younger women are disaffected and exhausted by feminist notions of having it all
- that feminism’s old gurus (like Germaine Greer) are really just marriage-challenged, man hating ratbags
- that feminism was all about women pursuing their own selfish creativity
- that feminism is all about victimhood
- that feminism forced mothers and daughters into competing victimhoods.
And yada, yada, yada … Of course, the backlash, so surgically analysed by feminist authors like Susan Faludi, never gets a look in. In fact, Murray-Smith is writing from an embedded backlash viewpoint – never stepping outside the square to analyse her own brainwashing against feminism by the backlash media.
The play’s genuinely farcical wit softens the massive blows it inflicts upon the integrity of the feminist struggle. However, it has absolutely no interest in absolving feminism of the imaginary crimes it stands accused of.
OUCH. Wow. This play sounds really bad. On the surface it has good feminsit cred but I guess we need to look below the surface. Thanks for the info.
So I just saw “The Female of the Species” at the Geffen Playhouse on Sunday night. (left the theatre, got in my car and found out Kathryn Bigelow had just won her Oscar. Yeah!)
Anyway, unlike the woman above, I really liked the play. I thought it was hysterical and did a great job of acknowledging the chaos of women and men’s roles in the post 1970s feminist movement. (who are we, what do we want, what are our roles?, etc.)
I skimmed through a few reviews afterwards, and I thought it was weird that the NY Times reviewer, who didn’t like this LA production, mentioned:
“The production, directed by the Geffen artistic director, Randall Arney, and also featuring the well-known actors David Arquette and Julian Sands, ranks among the most noxious I’ve seen at a major nonprofit theater. Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
The part I thought was weird is that the female actors are the main leads, the men he listed have the smallest parts. So if you don’t like the play, talk about the female roles/actresses…
And of course, I completely disagree with the NY Times reviewer. Although he does have 1 major point, I could see this play really offending some feminists. As it really pokes fun at some of the ideology. Since I’m in my mid-30s, I found it more amusing, but I suppose if I was an older woman who had fought all her life to get the rights I take for granted, it might not be so funny. But as a younger woman having grown up observing the dichotomy and (accidental) mixed messages feminism sometimes gives, I found the play more amusing and on-point.