Three years, two different casts, two interstate and one international tour later, it's the final show of one of my favorite shows in recent memory. And returning to it three years later, it's familar yet new, still full of life as four actresses and their dresser struggle with career, relationships and social position as they emerge during the Restoration as the first actresses to perform. There's distinct changes (Christiane Nowack's set has had a few alterations to make it more easily tourable, and of the main cast of five, 3 are replacements), but the solid bones of Pidgeonhole's production show strong, even as the changes mean the show belongs to the new cast as much as it did to the originals.
Comparisons between then and now are almost beside the point - if, perhaps, when first watching the show there was a great sense of women launching into an unknown future, at the end of the run there's maybe a bit more weight to that uncertain future, and to this as an elegy of how each of these women ended their time on stage. The two returners show just as much strength as they did before - Liz Bradley still hilarious and touching as the slightly disrespectful Doll Common, and Karen Vickery being both an imperious terror in her prime and a touching figure as she finds herself sidelined by her husband. The replacements give different effects to their moments - comparing them you find one element is increased while another diminished, so Natasha Vickery's Nell Gwynne is perhaps a touch more naive, a touch less brash; Yanina Clifton has a different kind of hunger as Mrs Farley, so eager to hold onto the status she's only just acquired; and Lainie Hart's umbrage at her mistreatment as Mrs Marshall seethes differently. But it's still superlative theatre, and it's a wonderful farewell to a work that feels like it's expanded the horizons of Canberra theatre in all kinds of good ways.
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