Westacre Theatre presented two plays Hidden Stories that were thought-provoking says reviewer Jenny Beake

Westacre Theatre has a varied programme of live theatre, National Theatre screenings, workshops and youth theatre.

Having seen a few productions such as Peter Pan, Private Lives and Model Behaviour it was interesting to see Hidden Stories.

Two new one-act plays were presented by The Play’s The Thing Theatre Company, depicting two women who were tried and executed.

Now You See Me, written by Carly Halse, and Darlint Peidi, by Rosemary Hill, uncover two cases which are now seen as major miscarriages of justice, raising the question about the treatment of men and women and its hypocrisy.

Ruth Ellis was the last female to be hanged in Britain, imprisoned for murder at HMP Holloway. She was born in 1926 and she died in 1955.

Now You See Me was written by playwright Halse, who also took on the role in the Westacre production.

In a solitary prison cell, she is a woman who has been stripped of all the glamour and glitz that her lifestyle afforded.

There are remnants of the life she was living which she describes in detail with intermittent songs from the period playing.

Halse played the character with a mixture of vulnerabilty and glimpses of prowess that showed qualities of her previous life.

Ellis was seen as a sexual predator, a night club hostess who neglected her duties as a mother and ultimately as a murderer following the fatal shooting of her lover.

What stands out in the performance by Halse was the love and protection her character showed towards her children.

Along with her isolation in the prison cell there was a sense from the actor of confusion and fear as she faced death and separation from her children

Ellis’ case and execution formed a large change in the law to abolish the death penalty.

After a short interval, the next play was Darlint Peidi by playwright Hill.

Again set in the cell, in this play the hidden story of Edith Thompson, executed for murder in 1923, was portrayed by actor Rebecca Hardcastle.

Thompson came accross as a different type of woman to Ellis and the two contrasted in their appearance and attitude.

Hardcastle had a humourous take on some aspects of the character’s situation and thanks to a theatrical technique she meets a woman from the future – the 1960s – who reveals how life and the world has continued for women’s rights.

The mysterious visitor, played by Caroline Mann, dressed in the styles of the 60s, talks about female liberation, the pill and how women have choices.

Both plays also explored the hypocrisy with how women are portrayed in the press and out of interest I bought two newspapers from a petrol station on the way home to see if the narratives around women have changed.

One front page was about the treatment of women and safety and the other was about a woman who had left her role as a priest who was now posing nude. The fact that she was a lesbian which was in capitals just in case the reader missed it.

So, villified for expressing a different life choice and being a lesbian, and the fact that women are still unsafe in a patriarchal society.

Has much changed?

Should they have reached for the pen instead of the gun? Facing violence – did they have many choices?

Those are the questions the plays asked and I can recommend a visit to Westacre Theatre for some thought provoking and professional performances.

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