ACT Reviews 2022-2023 Season

from the audience. Throughout the first act the audience is introduced to all the characters. We discover what concerns and problems they have and the doctor tries to offer advice and guidance. Mary Ellis was quite confident in her portrayal of Madeline Weinberg and occasionally showed her art as a mimic. Jane Rudolph playing Libby Burke, was quite a “straight” character who hadn’t had a relationship with a man for a number of years but had formed a bond with Madeline. The ditsy character of Alison Taylor with a fetish to date men with names beginning with “B” was played with humour by Amy Butler. There had obviously been a lot of thought put into the characterisation of Alison to bring her to life. The voice that Amy created for her was just perfect, there was good pace and expression in the dialogue. The rendition of Men Are Dogs to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat was hilarious and dare I say, could be a Christmas number one! There was a strong characterisation from Sarah Howsam who was the serial cop dater, Loretta Morris. There was an aggressive performance from this regular cheated on character but the final scene where she became a uniformed cop dominatrix was a hoot and really lifted the end of the play. As part of the therapy, all the women are invited to the evening role play sessions. Here the doctor hires a man to be the partner for the patients to manifest their deepest angers and play them out. The first victim is Tony, played by Matt Powell, who played him as a confident narcissist which I think was just right for the character. He was confident in his own skin and had the mantra of “why not”. There was a lot of humour that came from these interactions, especially as the character was very chauvinistic and just made matters worse with his female counterparts due to the things he said. It didn’t end well between him and Loretta. However, the final scene between Sarah and Matt was really a laugh out loud moment and as they left the stage the, I presume adlib of “Kumquat” used as a safe word, had us laughing heartily. There was also a second male “volunteer” and that was the engaging