Kate Cheel as Baby Doll, Socratis Otto as Silva Vacarro. Photo: Prudence Upton
Who holds the power in Baby Doll? When the film (directed by Elia Kazan) was released in 1956, it was controversial because of its overt sexuality (the Catholic Legion of Decency gave it a ‘Condemned’ rating and labelled it ‘grievously offensive to Christian and traditional standards of morality and decency’).Presented to modern audiences, courtesy of Pierre Laville and Emily Mann’s 2015 adaptation for the stage, the sexual themes are less shocking than the assumptions of male power and white male superiority.
It’s still a steamy tale of power and lust though, and director Shaun Rennie says that examining the work through a contemporary theatrical lens allows us to explore the continually evolving and shifting beliefs regarding a woman’s rights to autonomy and control over her sexuality.
Set in rural Mississippi, the Baby Doll of the title (played by Kate Cheel) has been married to Archie Lee (Jamie Oxenbould) for nearly two years but, by prior agreement, the marriage will not be consummated until Baby Doll’s 20th birthday – which is imminent. As well as being sexually frustrated, Archie Lee is a middle-aged alcoholic and bigoted cotton gin owner. His business is not booming and he decides the best way to get rid of his rival, Sicilian Silva Vacarro (Socratis Otto), is via a spot of arson. When Vacarro comes looking for retribution, he concentrates his efforts on seducing Baby Doll in the hope of getting her to admit Archie Lee’s guilt. The fourth member of the cast is Maggie Dence as Baby Doll’s Aunt Rose Comfort, whose blinkered and unseeing gaze offers some light relief in the otherwise tense proceedings.
Anna Tregloan’s set provides an claustrophobic wooden box of a house, reached by rickety steps, through which glimpses of the child-woman that is Baby Doll are first seen. The lighting (Verity Hampson) and Sound (Nate Edmonson) evoke the heat and atmosphere of the Deep South.
Baby Doll starts somewhat languidly but builds into a steamy little inferno of seduction, betrayal and revenge. Cheel is brilliant as the petulant, greedy and perhaps dim Baby Doll, just as Otto is the perfect seducer, menacingly sure of himself and his ability to reel in his prey. If the church was outraged by the 1956 film, it should prepare for apoplexy at this slow and measured seduction. “Hide and seek is a game for children.” Not here, Baby Doll.
Aunt Rose, expertly embodied by Maggie Dence, sees nothing of course, and is more concerned with sating her craving for chocolate than anything else. (Like Baby Doll, she is there to be biddable. What was she like as a girl? Just a commodity, something to be owned, as Baby Doll is now?)
Toxic Archie Lee, not a sympathetic character at all, is so well portrayed by Oxenbould that, in the closing scenes, it is almost (almost, but not quite) possible to feel sorry for his ignorance. How could this be happening to him? “I’m a white man!’ His anguish and incomprehension says it all.
Has Rennie’s lens unearthed anything we didn’t already know about the subjugation of women and, to quote his director’s notes, the ‘many roles they are forced to “perform” in order to manoeuvre their way through an unbalanced system where the male gaze is omnipresent, and to question the permanence and depth of exciting social changes that have been made slowly but progressively to right that imbalance’? Given that Baby Doll’s final scene – in which the two women are left in limbo, everything hinging on the decision of a predatory man – I can only say no. It shows us those attitudes prevail, albeit sometimes cloaked and sometimes softened. But then again, there is a hint that this Baby Doll isn’t finished yet – and that’s worth seeing. As is this production.
Until 16 November; tickets $38-$78
