Sep. 10, 2008 - Issue #673: Sex in the City 2008
Mo & Jess Kill Susie
Girls, uninterrupted
“There’s always like 18 soldiers, and one nurse,” he laughs. “I think there’s always an abundance of male roles [in theatre], and women are often relegated to the girlfriend or the wife. And often, if you do find a show with two women or three women in it like this, I’m disappointed that they always seem to be fighting over a man.”
A man isn’t the problem, or even a flesh and blood role, in Mo & Jess Kill Susie. The titular pair of femme fatales have their captive policewoman tied up in the bathroom of an abandoned building, waiting for a phone call to order her either dead or set free. But the call doesn’t come. Panic starts to creep in around them, and Mo & Jess takes a violent turn.
Though it may be out of the ordinary as far as female roles are concerned, according to Schmidt, the three actresses were almost a little too eager to get raucous with each other.
“What’s kind of scary to me is how much [the actresses] enjoy the violence part of it,” he says. “It’s really interesting: the play really explores ‘are women violent?’ and what drives women to violent action ... and these chicks really like kicking each other in the face, and punching each other, and gun-butting to the head and stuff like that. They’re really into the stage-fighting; they don’t get to do that very often.”
Mo & Jess is the second play in recent memory that Schmidt’s plucked from New Zealand (the other was Cherish, last year’s NLT season-closing heart-twister). It stood out from a few other scripts Schmidt received, based on a few guidelines he’d given to a playwright agent he’d been in contact with: a small cast with a predominance of women.
However, like with Cherish, a few script alterations were necessary. In part, Mo & Jess examines the issues of the Maori people of New Zealand, an Aboriginal group most Canadians aren’t particularly aware of.
“It’s written for two Maori women and a white woman,” Schmidt explains. “We don’t get that Maori experience here, we don’t understand it. However, [the play] seems to really translate well to the [Canadian] Native experience.”
Some small edits were made after an email conversation with the playwright, and Mo & Jess was set for Canadian audiences. The switches Schmidt asked for were mostly cultural clarifiers but most of the play was left as is. The issues explored in the script weren’t what drew Schmidt in.
“I could’ve done the play with three white women,” he says. “It’s still a good play. I never pick a play because the issue is right. I pick a play because I like the characters, and I like that story that happens to them.
“That was something that I was really pleased about with this play,” he continues. “It explores poverty, and social class, race, and violence among women, but there’s no man. They aren’t trying to be the girlfriend, the wife or the mother.” V
Thu, Sep 11 - Sun, Sep 21 (8 pm)
Mo & Jess Kill Susie
Directed by Trevor Schmidt
Written by Gary Henderson
Starring Amanda Bergen, Amy Matysio, Lora Brovold
Third Space (11516 - 103 St), $15 - $20
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