Les Femmes Review

“Les Femmes” is a play put on by The Starving Actor Society, which was founded by Kathy Steel, the writer and director of the play, who also portrayed two of the four characters in the piece. Les Femmes is a play of fictional vignettes based around four historically famous women at crucial points in their lives. Steel portrayed Coco Chanel, the famous fashion designer as well as Greta Garbo, a noted actress. Jenelle Sosa portrayed the other two characters: Marion Davies, a movie actress but better known for her longstanding affair with William Hearst, a newspaper owner; and Natalie Wood, an actress made famous in her childhood. All of the vignettes are structured as monologues that occasionally engage an invisible other character, and are often addressed to the audience as if the character was having a conversation with each and every audience member individually.
The play was written using as many of the actual words of each historical figure as possible, words found in letters, eyewitness accounts, interviews, etc. If you’re familiar with any of the historical figures, you will catch some of the humor inherent in the writing of the play—Coco Chanel’s self-assured confidence (arrogance?), for example. However, if you’re like me, and aren’t very familiar with all of the historical figures the play is portraying, there is still a lot for you to get out of this play. Some interesting themes run throughout each monologue, themes that carry resonance with the modern hearer.
One small but interesting connection I found was between the first two vignettes and the last two vignettes, respectively. It didn’t seem as if any of the portrayals were ad-libbed, so Steel’s use of repetition (slight as it may be) is interesting.
The first connection, between the first two vignettes, is the phrase ‘entre nous’ which means ‘just between us’. Both Marion Davies and Coco Chanel (two very different character portrayals) use the phrase when addressing the audience. Marion Davies seems to use the term in an attempt to be sophisticated like her movie star peers, but it falls a little flat, and shows the audience a bit of her true colors: that she is a beautiful, young, woman who appears to be a classy movie star but whose real talent lies in entertainment: entertaining moviegoers by making them laugh, and entertaining the man in her life despite his long term marriage to another woman. Coco Chanel uses the term to describe her relationship with her late lover, calling it ‘a heaven unimaginable on earth to most’, in comparison to her several statements of ‘hell? I have lived it!’ Her use of ‘entre nous’ is more natural (especially given that she’s French), but, like Marion Davies’ usage, it reveals something about Coco Chanel’s character. Coco Chanel’s portrayal is marked by an almost exaggerated air of self-sufficiency that is almost grandiose but this air also hints at a steely strength that has seen her through years of hard work, failed relationships, and two world wars. Coco Chanel’s use of ‘entre nous’ starts to get at her innate need to connect others despite having developed a harsh wall of self protection.
The second connection is a similar use of repetition between the last two vignettes, Natalie Wood and Greta Garbo, both famous film actresses. In both monologues the characters off-handedly say ‘it was never really my life’ in connection with both characters’ interactions with the press and the public at large. Both characters had some eccentricities that made them unusual in the eyes of the public. Natalie Wood’s fame gained at such a young age, as well as her romantic relationships, again at such a young age, garnered a lot of attention and scrutiny. Greta Garbo’s slightly reclusive lifestyle toward the end of her life made her all the more sought out by photographers and reporters, and though she complained of the scrutiny, she apparently followed a very predictable routine when it came to shopping and errands. Natalie Wood’s portrayal uses the ‘it never was my life’ to refer to her relationship with her mother—implying that her mother controlled and pushed her into the life she led. Greta Garbo’s potrayal used the phrase in reference to the demands of the press—implying that her life was never her own, that it was always examined and evaluated by others.
This was a well-written and well-acted piece, so much so that even if you had no point of reference for any of the four historical figures, you would still resonate with the stories of each woman—the losses, the triumphs, the confusion, the struggles, and the various refuges they each sought.
-becca

This show is still running! Check it out on Tuesday 9/9 at 6 p.m. or Friday 9/12 at 8 p.m. at the Walking Fish Theater 2509 Frankford Ave. $10 online or at the door.