The Stage

How To Be An Other Woman

Published Friday 3 September 2010 at 13:06 by Heather Neill

Natalie Abrahami has taken the first sentence of Lorrie Moore’s1985 self-help story - “Meet in expensive beige raincoats, on a pea-soupy night.” - as the key to her sharp, cleverly crafted adaptation. A trench coat, one of a dozen that provide props and scenery, transforms, in turn, four young women into Charlene, the “other woman”.

Faye Castelow and Ony Uhiara in How To Be An Other Woman at the Gate Theatre Photo: Simon Kane

Abrahami imagines them, dressed alike in black skirts, white blouses and smart court shoes, working in an expensive store. She maintains the order cum advice style of the self help manual by sharing the narrative among the four, while the others act out episodes, playing other characters including the adulterous lover. Like the author when the story was written, they are playful, on the brink of experience, adopting leading roles in the dressing up box fantasy of their lives. The man they imagine is an unreliable hunk, a screen-style manifestation of generic attractiveness, while Charlene’s attempts to be soigne often involve dreadful puns. The wife, glimpsed in a photo, is a sinister skier in gigantic shades.

Linbury winner Samal Blak has contributed a flexible design - three metal rectangles which become frames, rooms and racks. High-heeled shoes serve as telephones, lights and spoons. A fluid soundtrack, by Rich Walsh, including eighties disco, music from Psycho and the Harry Lime theme, matches the tongue-in-cheek style of the adaptation.

Witty, disciplined choreography (by Aline David) masquerades as improvisation in this exemplary ensemble piece. Abrahami, joint artistic director of the Gate, has previously tackled Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata. Here her direction pleasingly picks up Moore’s sense of student-like experimentation, smoothly delivered by all four Charlenes.