Ahead of the opening of Face to Face(an adaptation by
Simon Stone and Andrew Upton of the film by Ingmar Bergman about a
woman who loses her grip on her life), we are looking at some (of
the many) examinations of women dealing with mental illness in
theatre and film...
Tennessee Williams - inspired by his own bouts of depression
mixed with drug and alcohol dependency, and his sister
Rose's schitzophrenia - excelled at creating complex
female characters battling psychological demons. Perhaps his
most famous is Blanche DuBois, the beautiful, damaged Southern
belle in A Streetcar Named Desire. Jessica Tandy
played Blanche in the Broadway premiere season in 1947, opposite
Marlon Brando and directed by Elia Kazan. Vivian Leigh played her
in the West End production in 1949, directed by her husband
Laurence Olivier, and in the 1951 film, opposite Brando and
directed by Kazan. Here at STC our Co-Artistic Director Cate
Blanchett played the role in our 2009 production, opposite Joel
Edgerton and Robin McLeavy, and directed by Liv Ullmann. (Photo:
Lisa Tomasetti)
Another Williams heroine struggling to maintain a delicate
psychological balance is Laura, the fragile
daughter in The Glass Menagerie, who was played
by Eloise Oxer in a production here at STC in 2002, opposite Robyn
Nevin as her overbearing mother Amanda. (Photo: Heidrun Lohr)
Like Williams, Shakespeare was also fond of creating female
characters who teetered on the brink of sanity. Lady Macbeth,
who was played by Amber McMahon in the Border Project's Vs
Macbeth, which was presented at STC in 2010, loses her grip
after convincing her husband to go to any measure to become the
king of Scotland. (Photo: David Wilson)
The tragic heroine in Hamlet, the gentle Ophelia, loses
her mind when the man she loves publicly humiliates her, rejects
her love and murders her father, and she ends up drowning in the
river. She has been immortalised in countless stage and film
versions, including in a performance Jean Simmons in the
1948 film, opposite Laurence Olivier as the tortured Danish
prince.
Robyn Nevin returned to the STC stage in 2010 to play the
morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone in our production of Eugene O'Neill's
Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece Long Day's Journey into
Night, opposite William Hurt as James Tyrone, Sr. (Photo:
Brett Boardman)
Moving momentarily from the theatrical to the operatic, Dame Joan
Sutherland made her name internationally playing the title role in
Lucia di Lammermoor. Her stirring interpretation of the
troubled young woman tricked into a loveless marriage, and
particularly her spectacular performance of the famous Mad Scene
(watch it here), in a production at the Royal Opera House
in 1959, was considered her breakthrough role. Emma Matthews will
perform the role in a new production for Opera Australia in
September.
Back in theatre, a playwright who explored her own battle with
mental illness through her work was Sarah Kane (pictured), who
committed suicide in 1999, and never saw the premiere of her fifth
and final full-length play 4:48 Psychosis, which The
Telegraphtheatre critic Charles Spencer described as "a
75-minute suicide note".
Kane was considered part of the In Yer Face theatre movement in the
UK in the late 90s, alongside Scottish playwright Anthony Neilson,
who explored the duality of mental illness in The Wonderful
World of Dissocia, which was staged at STC in 2009, starring
Justine Clarke. (Photo: Brett Boardman)
By Alex Lalak
Face to
Face, Sydney Theatre, 7 August - 8 September, 2012.
Feature: Stage heroines and madness
Date posted: 3 Aug 2012Author: STC