Chic French theatre hit set to thrill

Cast of 8 Women at Belco Arts

by Helen Musa

In a production likely to be dubbed “So Frenchy, So Chic”, Mockingbird Theatre has embarked upon a production of French playwright Robert Thomas’ murder mystery, 8 Femmes (8 Women) one of the most popular plays in France, now directed by Chris Baldock and translated by assistant director, Céline Oudin.

A la Agatha Christie, it’s set in an isolated mansion in the snowy countryside of 1950s France where a family is gathered for the holiday season, but the family patriarch has been murdered, and the killer can only be one of the eight women of the house.

8 Women is much better known for the movie musical adaptation by François Ozon, which starred Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Emmanuelle Béart, Fanny Ardant, Virginie Ledoyen, Danielle Darrieux, Ludivine Sagnier and Firmine Richard, and won all the eight principal actresses joint Best Actress at the 2002 European Film Awards.

Ozon had really wanted to do a remake of George Cukor’s film The Women but couldn’t get the rights, so took Thomas’ script, added some songs and pulled in elements of Hollywood screwball comedies, meaning, according to Oudin, that there are key differences. She’s returning to the original.

Tapping into the stereotype that the French are masters/mistresses of all varieties of sex, Ozon had had mother Gaby pashing on the floor with Pierrette, while the father is accused of incest. Not in the play, although there is plenty of sex.

Chris Baldock and Céline Oudin at Belco Arts

When I catch up with Baldock and Oudin, they’re busy getting ready to turn the capacious rehearsal room at Belco Arts into a three-quarter side performance space.

Oudin, a French woman who has lived in Australia for 21 years, first in Sydney, came to Canberra so her 16-year-old son could attend the Telopea Park School, Lycée Franco Australien, and found the capital “more pleasant than I expected”.

Having worked in the film industry in the late ’90s and only 2000s, she first came to Australia with the idea of making a documentary on the stolen generation, went back to France to look for funding, but having met her partner, an American-Australian, decided to settle here.

Arriving in Canberra (a bubble during Covid, she says) she took time to settle in, while looking around for theatre groups.

She joined a workshop in the Meisner technique of acting run by Lexi Sekuless, then heard about the acting teacher and director, Chris Baldock, and started attending his classes in 2022.

“I find theatre very contagious,” she says. “It’s fascinating seeing the students come back, seeing their evolution.”

During a directing class with Baldock she told him about her interest in 8 Women and how she wanted to return to Thomas’ original script, of which there was no published English version.

Baldock says that as she embarked on the translation, he stepped in as dramaturg, spotting some tricky moments with literal translations.

Both are very aware of the 1950s setting, so there’ll be no four-letter words thrown around.

“We wanted to keep the Frenchness and the period of the piece but literal translation don’t always work and sometimes the sentences sat wrongly with the ear,” they explain.

With that in mind, “You’re mad, all of these books have turned your head [“[faire] tourner la tête”] was changed to “You’re mad, all of these books have rotted your mind.”

In another instance, “She’s never been sick! It’s her number,” was changed to “She’s never been sick! It’s her usual routine.”

“Initially I started out translating it on my own,” Oudin says, “but then I worked with a young lady called Archie and then with Chris, who helped me find the rhythm in the text.”

Oudin believes the play hits the spot because, although it is set in a grand house, many of the characters have married into money so it cuts across age and class.

“Forty people auditioned; it wasn’t at all hard to cast,” Baldock says, adding that he quickly worked out there was no better person to play the role of Gaby than Oudin so he said, “I’ll direct it, you can be in it.”

“It’s lovely to have a real French person doing a role,” he says, adding that they have been marketing it in the French community.

Regarding the twist ending of the play – the same as in the movie, Baldock will only say: “It’s a unique murder mystery, says all I can say is – this is so French!”

8 Women, Belconnen Arts Centre, October 10-19.

First published at Canberra City News, October 9, 2024