Well Behaved Women @ Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose
Veritas Productions and Amy Yeo attempts to juggle several salient themes in Well Behaved Women, but suffer from a weak script
After her success with Crash and Burn in 2023, Amy Yeo – one of the 180 recipients of the Keep it Fringe award and with a succesful Crowdfunder in tow – returns to Gilded Balloon presents new show Well Behaved Women, directed by Hannah Rogerson.
Meet Hattie, Emma and Marianne. Hattie and her brother, Fred, are members of the aristocracy. Emma teaches Hattie music and Marianne is her lady’s-maid with dreams of journalistic fame. The women, trapped by their gender in Victorian Britain (albeit in fun, fab dresses) are bonded by experience, yet divided by class and opportunity.
When Marianne is offered the chance to write for a national paper if she can provide a scandal for the editor, farcical hijinks in the form of a seance ensues. Enter horrible cousin Chester, the stereotypical byproduct of imperial Britain.
If there is a thread of coherency to be plucked from the performance, it is that being a woman is limiting in society. Yeo throws a multitude of themes towards her audience which she fails to conclude; Emma is mixed-race (Chester dipping a little too enthusiastically into his palette of racial slurs), Marianne is poor and Irish ("I grew up in a Ghetto!"), Hattie is Queer. The show acknowledges Emma and Marianne have different experiences from privileged Hattie, but fails to come to a concrete conclusion of how to move forward. Yeo’s copy declares the year to be 1883, a year after the Married Women’s Property Act in Britain has come into effect, yet none of the dialogue would indicate the significance of the play's timing.
Well Behaved Women has all the energy and good intentions that epitomise the Fringe. Performances, especially by Evelyn Faber (Hattie) and Ethan Kelly (Chester) are redeeming, as well as moments of comic relief. Sadly, Well Behaved Women's set and script let it down. It lacks conviction, pacing and a movement director. It is redeemed by its energy and enthusiasm but would benefit from a good rewrite.
Well Behaved Women, Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose (Doonstairs), until 25 Aug, 2.20pm, £13-15