REVIEW: The Female of The Species
- Bridie Middleton
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Cut and Run Productions' x Pip Theatre’s recent staging of The Female of the Species embraces the chaos of Joanna Murray-Smith’s sharp satire, delivering an entertaining bite of feminism, ideology, and the consequences of public influence.
Joanna Murray-Smith is known as a prolific Australian playwright. This work of hers, written two decades ago, is loosely inspired by the real-life incident where feminist writer Germaine Greer was bound and gagged by a young female intruder.
The play dramatises this incident through farce-like comedy to examine how powerful social movements shape personal choices and lived realities. It examines whether public figures should be held accountable for the consequences of their ideas, while also highlighting the everyday life impact of political rhetoric.
Cut and Run’s production visually treats us with a crafted wall of books. At first glance, it appears to be a shelving display that many of us literature lovers are familiar with, but the pops of detail jump out as we see many of the books are written by famed feminist writer Margot Mason.
Margot is one of the play’s central characters, described in Murray-Smith’s script as “handsome, impressive, a monster”. She’s a famous writer and kind of figure who has shaped cultural conversations around feminism and gender politics (a fictionalised Greer if you will).
Francesca Savige embodies a confident and captivating portrayal. Savige expertly walked the line between satire and sincerity, making Margot both theatrical and scathing while still grounding her. Her physicality was a huge highlight and made her consistently exciting to watch. Michaela Faux provided a strong counterpart as Molly Rivers, a former student of Margot’s who enters her home with a gun and needs some kind of answer or justice. Faux balanced the production’s chaos with a sweet charm and presence.
Director, Lara Rix, stages the confrontations between Molly and Margot like a tennis match, heightening the back-and-forth exchange between ideological certainty and lived experience where Molly critiques Margot’s approach. The two are then interrupted with Margot’s daughter Tess and Tess’s (Rebecca Day) husband Bryan (Josh Whitten).
Rebecca Day delivered the standout performance as Margot’s daughter Tess, a woman who runs on impulse and emotion, a contrast to Margot’s meticulous and intellectual persona. Day gives many stand out moments throughout the play, but her monologue about motherhood was guttural and has stuck with me long after watching the play. At the same time, her comedic timing was beautifully controlled, allowing the emotional and comic moments to build a messy and memorable character.
Peter Hatton (Frank) and Danny Brown (Theo) enter in the final act and inject the production with another burst of energy, landing some of the play’s biggest laughs.
Technically, the production features several impressive moments. While some scenes could have benefited from tighter blocking to fully sustain tension and chaos, the practical effects are particularly effective where books fall on cue, and plaster crumbles from the walls with gunshots. Credit is due to Hannah Page (Stage Manager, Sound Design) and the creative team for the inventive use of these effects.
The production could have used more variation in tension and pacing, particularly as it moved deeper into the later acts to give the play more depth. However, the sharp wit of Murray-Smith’s script and the cast’s committed performances ensured the comedy continued to land.
While I wouldn’t call this a new perspective on the known text, The Female of the Species certainly offers an engaging and entertaining revisit of its ideas and is backed by a strong cast of local creatives. The lingering nostalgia around second-wave feminism runs throughout the production, raising compelling questions about accountability and the lasting impact of influential voices.
The Female of the Species closes on May 16th.
