The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband

The set was built into a corner of the auditorium with the audience sitting on 2 sides and the stage on 2 levels. The up stage right area represented Hilary's kitchen, simply built with green cupboard fronts and hanging kitchen utensils. Up stage left was Laura's 'boudoir', with sexy underwear draped around it. These 2 contrasting areas were a simple but effective way of showing the differences between the two women: Hilary, the accomplished cook now unattractive to her husband, and Laura, unable to even make a sandwich, but able to provide Kenneth with sexual excitement.

The stage area was quite small and at times it hampered the actors' movements as they tried to edge past each other or the furniture. Also occasionally the actors moved between the stage and the front row of the audience, which necessitated us moving our legs out of the way. The table which split in half was ingenious and allowed Kenneth to take centre stage when necessary.

Lighting was largely limited to a general wash with blackouts denoting the passage of time. Almost all props were mimed, and these mimes were sometimes accompanied by sound effects e.g. the doorbell, door opening and closing etc. When props were used they were appropriate. The knife used by Hilary to threaten Kenneth, looked very sharp and therefore added quite a nice frisson to this scene.

The two women were costumed in exactly the same way, in green dresses with black cardigans, perhaps denoting the fact that they were interchangeable in Kenneth's eyes?  I did feel that perhaps Laura's dress needed to be a little sexier to suit her character.  Kenneth was costumed appropriately as a 'middle-aged man'.

The episodic nature of the story together with the style, required actors to alternate between speaking directly to the audience and speaking to each other. In a stylised piece such as this, it can be difficult for the Director to strike a good balance between making the characters naturalistic enough to be authentic and believable, whilst serving the authors' more surreal intentions. For the most part I think this balance was achieved well.

The three actors formed an excellent ensemble and worked well as a team. The scene between the 2 women when Laura tells Hilary about the affair, was excellent, with reactions from Hilary that seemed so genuine I'm sure they would have struck a chord with many in the audience. The Tower Ballroom flashback was very evocative, and the party scene with Kenneth's imaginary 'audience' of friends worked well. The domestic familiarity between Hilary and Kenneth was very believable; they really did seem like a long-married couple!

This play presents both actors and director with many challenges. The characters are fairly one-dimensional, yet the actors worked hard to make them interesting and varied. The title tells us what's going to happen, so it is to the credit of the company that they kept their audience entertained and entranced throughout, wondering how we were going to arrive at the inevitable end point. The final scene, with the falling knife and cleaver in front of Kenneth's body, and the snap blackout was a fitting finale.

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