You can dive into Polish playwright Tadeusz Rozewicz’s MARIAGE BLANC, as adapted by Melissa Bubnic, and know that you are not going to do yourself any injury…There are deep waters to explore.
Director Sarah Giles’s eloquently written program notes open the audience up to the themes that run through Rozewicz’s play, ‘I wonder if there is a moment in everyone’s life when you realise that you are constricted by your body. That you can’t do anything you want, You can’t transcend your very own ‘skin sac’. You have a vagina. You have a penis. Or in come cases a combination of the two. Your physical body has certain repercussions for you…..The play explores a question that fascinates me, what it’s like to wrestle with your own gender and body…Beneath our clothes is our very own real nude suit- we can’t hide from it. But most of us try to’.
There’s no hiding from the naked truth for the play’s seven strong cast withe Giles having the actors perform some of the play in transparent body suits!
The narrative focuses on two sisters, Pauline and Bianca, who are on the cusp of adulthood. The opening scene sees them in separate poster beds, teasing each other and thinking out loud about…body image, boys, how gross sex seems.. .Bianca is comparing notes about gender…she’s not too happy about being a woman…amongst her many thoughts-, ‘I don’t like it that any man can mount me’.
The tension in the play centres around Bianca’s upcoming arranged marriage to Benjamin. Bianca can’t bear the thought of having sex with him. She has run it by Benjamin and he says that he’s alright with having a MARIAGE BLANC (The play’s title is the French term for a marriage that hasn’t been consummated). Pauline can’t quite believe her her sister…
In her staging of this late nineteenth century play, Giles has gone on the front foot. It’s a fast paced, breathtaking 100 minutes without interval. There’s a rich playfulness and theatricality…performers wear extravagant masks….at one time a character shoots down an bird and that becomes the family dinner….there’s high farce with characters manically chasing each other and opening and slamming doors.
The cast are brave and wonderful…Paige Gardiner plays the naive, angst ridden Bianca, Katie McDonald is her petulant, competitive, bitchy sibling, Lucia Mastrantone and Sean O’Shea play their Mum and Dad, Sasha Horler doubles up as the girls Auntie as well as the family cook and Gig Clarke plays Bianca’s husband to be, Benjamin.
Highly recommended, Sarah Giles’s production of Polish playwright Tadeusz Rozewicz’s MARIAGE BLANC, adapted by Melissa Bubnic, opened at Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company, Pier 4, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay on Wednesday 5th December and runs until Sunday December 16, 2012.
(c) David Kary
13th December, 2012
Tags: Sydney Theatre Reviews- MARIAGE BLANC, Sydney Theatre Company, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Sarah Giles, Paige Gardiner,Katie McDonald, Lucis Mastrantone, Sean O’Shea, Sacha Horler, Gig Clarke, Sydney Arts Guide, David Kary