Review: How to be an Other Woman, Gate Theatre

Written for Culture Wars

There comes a certain point in a young woman’s life, probably somewhere in her early to mid-twenties, when the place once occupied by Disney’s princesses is usurped by Hollywood’s sirens. Wide-eyed, white-toothed wholesomeness is no longer satisfactory. Allure takes over. Glamour gains a sexual edge. For the princess is fortunate: her material benefits – ballgowns, tiaras and the like – are bestowed upon her. She is privileged, yes, but she is merely fortunate. The mistress, however, is her own woman. Using her feminine assets, her desirability, as a stranglehold over slack-jawed men, she deserves her fineries of choice: shoes, champagne and such. She earns her keep – and she keeps her earnings long after each admirer departs.

Lorrie Moore’s Other Woman, Charlene – a creature most definitely worthy of capitalization – remains anonymous and archetypal in Natalie Abrahami’s physical adaptation. She is a dream figure, one that has slipped from the silver screen into the streets of New York, as ethereal and unreal as a reflection in a department store window. Stepping into her (designer) shoes is a moment to be savoured. Taking the role in turn, each of the four female cast members slide slowly into her beige mac, flicking the wrist as it emerges from the sleeve and extending the arm in marvelling self-admiration. In the background, perhaps somewhere in their heads, there is a musical twinkle: the sort that marks the silver stars and magic dust of Cinderella’s transformation.

Abrahami is careful to keep this figure a fantastical fiction. She exists only as enacted by four department store dollies, as does the married man for whom she falls head over high heels. He is a silent, shadowy and unsentimental presence, always cradling her from behind. Sharply turned out, but never showy, his eyes are always hidden beneath the tilt of his trilby. He oozes outward confidence, yet is always gentle with her. He is the epitome of eroticism, a perfect balance of danger and paternalism.

When these two fantasies collide, it’s the man that wins out. The casual nature of his desire outmanoeuvres her capitalization of it. There is, it would seem, a remnant of the princess beneath the Other Woman. For all the excitement of the dashing cad and the rewards of laconic manipulation, there still exists a little girl longing to be loved, envious of the other Other Women, delicate, brittle and ultimately unsatisfied. She is caught in a paradox of empowerment and submission, left walking a boulevard of broken dreams, staring at her reflection in a rain-soaked department store window.

Perhaps Abrahami – following Moore’s lead, admittedly – comes perilously close to giving up on men altogether, sweeping us under the carpet as uncaring, capricious, lust-led bastards. There is, however, at least an undercurrent against the idealised form presented. That the women play the trilbied chap, always falling short of genuine masculinity, suggests the unrealistic impossibility of the Platonic construct.

At the risk of shattering anyone’s image of my own mysterious masculinity, I rather enjoyed How to be an Other Woman. It has the whimsical comfort factor of romance, the sort that draws you sofa-wards to pass a rainy afternoon in front of a classic film.

To do so, though, one must settle into it. One must overlook a certain lack of snap, because Abrahami’s production is a little reserved and, dare I say it, a bit British. It’s coy rather than sexy and a touch precious where it should be brassy. To borrow from Sex & the City (and further undermine my own masculine credentials), there’s too much Charlotte, not enough Samantha. More problematically, Abrahami replicates a familiar style rather than fully owning it, playing at where she ought to be playing straight or playing with. The instructional nature of Moore’s text remains intact, narrated as if stage directions, but it’s handled with a literalism that reduces it to tell and show stuff.

That’s not to suggest an absence of invention. As it warms up – maybe as we warm to it – the staging becomes more complex, bolder. Beige macs take over to become a walk-in closet and a marital bed; the ensemble knits together, multiplying the populace that surround the Other Woman with echoing gestures. It begins to capture the cyclone of the city and, gradually, the Other Woman seems a windswept little girl lost.

Of the uneven cast, Cath Whitefield demonstrates precisely how to multi-role, capturing the essence of a caricature with a deft precision and, more importantly, genuine commitment. Faye Castelow suits the Other Woman like a glass slipper: gamine, doe-eyed and full of delicate charm.

Enjoyable though it is, Abrahami’s production never really critiques Moore’s perspective. Despite locating the world in a daydream with Samal Blak’s shimmering, sleek design suggesting the a Vogue fashion shoot, Abrahami never punctures the bubble. She permits the material girl her aspirations and, even when the affair turns sour, there’s a nagging sense that the Other Woman ought dust herself down and try again. Perhaps there’s hope in that – the princess still searching for her prince – but there’s also an inevitability of repetition. The magnetism of the enigma remains reward in and of itself. Ensnare the man, become the Other Woman. It aspires to be treated like a princess with or without the happily ever after.

Is that problematic? I’m not sure it’s my place to say.