Anton Burge’s new play “Bette and Joan” had it’s first night at the Richmond Theatre last night. What a lovely couple of parts for two of our well known, slightly older shall we say actresses. Brilliant performances by Anita Dobson as Joan Crawford and Greta Scacchi as Bette Davis that they are clearly having fun with.
The set is their cleverly adjoining dressing rooms at Warner Brother’s studio whilst filming “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane” that terrifying, but remarkably successful film they were both clever and driven enough to make as they got older and found that parts for women their age were drying up rapidly. It allows a constant monologue between the two women to flow into almost a conversation. It’s cleverly put together.
Both women were incredibly strong characters with very similar backgrounds and very driven. Hence their caustic relationship. Both had the “no guts, no glory” mentality with a strong work ethic – both believing that enemies consisted of “anyone who gets in the way of your work” and that nobody is indispensable – family, friends…husbands (they both had four).
The second half is much more enjoyable than the first – funnier, far ruder. In the first half as the two old dames prepare for a scene and we watch Greta slowly applying her make-up and costume and finally wig and suddenly she looks scarily like Bette Davis and she clearly relishes her role as an extraordinarily foul mouthed actress of the !950’s. By the second half she is swearing left, right and centre (even using the “C” word!) and commenting that she’s not planning to attract another husband and is “zipping it all up”. Her faux pas (beautifully acted) of saying that Marilyn Monroe is the “second biggest hole in Hollywood” was spectacular.
Excellent play. Go if you can. Between the two of them you can see that they are in agreement that “the wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the oil”.
