The Female of the Species

Westwood, California – Thank you, thank you Joanna Murray-Smith for supplying Annette Bening with the role and the wordplay which permit her to do what she does best: joust with words, thrust with words, lunge with words.  I loved, yes I loved Being Julia and the beautiful, clever Julia with the rich voice and luscious intonation that permitted her to get her absolutely wonderful revenge — the look in the eye that lets you know she had weapons yet unused. Then came a very trying Medea, the version was a mish-mash, dragging her off in dubious directions, and I came away disappointed, not with Annette but with the author. Now Bening  returns in Female of the Species, which I guess is a satire on the feminist movement, something in that arena, the exact message unclear because the lines are fast and funny, somewhere between Front Page and the wild pacing of Noises Off.

We find her on a very handsome set, the elegant room of a very successful feminist icon who has seduced a generation of women with her early seminal work, “The Cerebral Vagina.” Dramatically, she paces her room searching for a new idea when a young woman intrudes, a dedicated fan, and of course the adulation attracts our author who offers tea until she realizes that the “fan” is actually a maniacal disappointed daughter of a mother who not only took the author’s words as gospel but gave away her daughter and threw herself under a train clutching the author’s book. (Shades of Madame Bovary.) The  gun-wielder has lost a mother, had herself “neutered” in the philosophy of women who should avoid the monotony of marriage and motherhood to discover the true self, and now where is she, what is she, who is she?  She chains the author to a chair where Annette Bening sits for the almost 95 minutes of the play, managing to deliver her lines from that impossibly trapped position.

Now, into the scene runs the author’s daughter, in PJs and robe — she couldn’t stand motherhood any longer. She had, of course, defied her mother’s injunction and married an impossibly boring man, had two children which she has abandoned alone, took a train in her nighties (with what money who knows and who cares) to attack her mother for never loving her, and at the same time proving the veracity of her mother’s injunction to ditch wife-dom and motherhood. When she discovers the gun-wielder, she totally relates to her — go ahead and kill my mother.  The daughter bemoans her miserable cab-ride here where the cabby insisted on telling his whole sad relationship story. Now into the scene bursts the husband who adores his wife. Why has she abandoned him when he is actually the epitome of “modern man” constructed by the feminist generation into being “understanding” and “sensitive” and “compassionate”? He makes tea and plays his part in an apron. Now into the scene bursts the cab driver, who has been emasculated by the “movement” and now tears off his shirt to show his real testosterony self, which, of course, attracts the mad daughter… Isn’t raw maleness what women actually want? And now into the scene bursts the editor, who nails down the farce by emoting about the sad state of publishing and offers contracts to everyone with a “real life story.” As to the final explosive ending…let me not be a spoiler.

But you see what you have. Annette Bening, elegant in short cropped hair, chained to a desk and doing what she does best. She has liberated women…into what? And she plays  it handcuffed to a desk for 95 minutes. If you are one of us who suffers without an intermission, be forewarned.  Although I admit the action and the dialogue were so fast and funny, seasoned with so many one-liners and zingers that the action and the dialogue overcame my usual discomfort.

As to the message, we live in odd sexual times. The closet has been flung wide open. Women make their own good livings and yet so many secretly (maybe not so secretly) yearn for a “relationship” which means what in the free-sexual generation? Go back to the ’40s when, at least in film, there were always single beds, sex in the private dark, but a marriage commitment meant ’til death does us part (boring or not).  Poor Madame Bovary’s sexual adventures threw her under a train. There is hardly a film today which does not include coupling, usually the male panting and moaning, the usual hump-hump movements, but scarcely ever a film on the reality of male/female relationships that is not ironic or negative. Yesterday being Valentine’s Day, there is a lot of “romance,” but remember the song in Into the Woods where the prince woos his true love, but when the romance peters out, what now does he do for excitement?

You will not find the answers here, but hey, who cares? Annette Bening is at her best, the daughter played by Mireille Enos is appealingly mad, Josh Stamberg plays the taxi male-revealed driver, Merrit Wever wields the gun, David Arquette serves tea in an apron, sort of “you made me what I am – what are you complaining about?” Julian Sands makes a convincing editor. Since he’s a great favorite of mine, I felt his talents almost wasted this small role.

So much fun. The handsome set by Takeshi Kata.

Remember, don’t drink too much at dinner.

Geffen Playhouse
10886 Le Conte
Westwood, California