Women wits and warriors lockdown in wartime France in a comedy that resonates today
As we wake to a war of words transatlantic style at a possibly pivotal moment in history, Steven Carl McCasland’s war of witty women provides a timely, telling antidote. It’s June 1940, the eve of the fall of France to the Nazis. Hunkered down in the French Alps, devoted couple Alice B Toklas and Gertrude Stein, veterans of a marriage of true minds that thrives on joshing, are hosting a liquid dinner party. Their guest list of iconic women includes playwright Lillian Hellman, critic and wit Dorothy Parker, and celebrated crime writer Agatha Christie. But when the doorbell rings their maid Bernadette ushers in ‘Mary’, a woman working undercover on a mission to smuggle refugees out of Nazi Germany, come to collect promised cash to subsidise her cause.
Sophie Thompson © John Brannoch
Anticipating the acerbic put-downs with which she will welcome her guests, when Mary enquires about the friends she and Toklas are expecting, Stein replies: “They are not our friends, they are writers.”
Once Hellman, Parker and Christie arrive, the battle of wits begins in earnest, fuelled not just by alcohol, but by a long-running feud between Stein and Hellman. McCasland revels in writing fun lines for all these wonderfully precious, clannish literary women, living his dream gathering. In his cleverly imagined scenario, each woman is equally vivid and each has a back story that belies their surface brittle wit. And there proves to be more to Bernadette than simply devoted housekeeper, as the reason Stein and Toklas return that devotion becomes apparent.
(L-R) Catherine Russell, Sarah Solemani, Linda Basset, Natasha Karp, Juliet Stevenson, Sophie Thompson, and Debbie Chazen © John Brannoch
At the centre of this perfectly cast production, Catherine Russell’s Toklas and Linda Bassett’s Stein reveal the complexities of their relationship. Bassett is formidable and devastating in her put-downs, Russell touchingly conveys Toklas’s gentle and discreet support of the louder and mouthier Stein. Later there are beautifully written moving monologues revealing their history together, beginning with a romantic meeting in Paris.
Juliet Stevenson’s Hellman is authoritative, incisive and daringly unsympathetic – especially as she questions the point of rescuing a few Jews out of hundreds. Debbie Chazen oozes Parker’s trademark wit, but she makes it clear it is her armour against her vulnerability as she delves into a hinterland of painful memories and lifelong regrets.
Juliet Stevenson © John Brannoch
Sophie Thompson’s Christie is a delicious period creation, a credible female Poirot indeed as she draws out dangerous and shocking revelations. Sarah Solemani brings a stoic, determined intensity to Mary and Natasha Karp’s damaged Bernadette reveals her strength and depth of character, her face a study of emotions as her story is told.
The close-ups of these extraordinarily expressive faces make a real strength of the exigencies of recording the play on Zoom, with each actor facing the camera, isolated within their own frame. Director Hannah Chissick creates a playing style that creates its own integrity, working with editor John Walsh Brannoch, and every exit is a mysterious, magical fade to disappearance. I hope the production will find its time and place in real life, but meanwhile this is so much more than a lockdown time-filler.
By Judi Herman
Little Wars streams until Thursday 3 December. Funds raised will be donated to the charity Women for Refugee Women. £12. ONLINE. www.littlewars.co.uk
Listen to our Little Wars interview with playwright Steven Carl McCasland, plus cast members Linda Bassett and Debbie Chazen, on JR OutLoud.