A woman in a blue blazer looks excitedThis is a ‘tune up’ of 2018’s STUPID BITCH which played in a dance stu­dio above Cuba Street in the Fringe Fes­ti­val. As a work in devel­op­ment it gar­nered actor/writer Claire Wal­dron nom­i­na­tions for Out­stand­ing Per­former in the Welling­ton and Dunedin Fringe Fes­ti­vals. This time around it’s at BATS The­atre in The Hey­day Dome. Wal­dron is pre­sent­ing it as part of the 6 Degrees Fes­ti­val.

Described as “An orig­i­nal, mul­ti-media show about a range of women from dif­fer­ent back­grounds with noth­ing in com­mon who might, if they were all in the one room, think of the oth­er women as‘ stu­pid bitch­es’“ the mul­ti­ple char­ac­ters are a kalei­do­scope, reflect­ing the other’s expe­ri­ence  This is exem­pli­fied in a sequence near the start of the piece. Words scroll upwards over a close up video of a face. They are pro­ject­ed onto a dark piece of cloth hang­ing from a pole sus­pend­ed from the roof.  Wal­dron has cocooned her­self in the trail­ing fab­ric on the ground. The sto­ry describes an encounter with a woman in Pigeon Park, judg­ing her as need­ing help. Help is offered but is met with a sting­ing rejec­tion. This explo­ration of how women see and are seen oscil­lates through­out the show. We nev­er meet exact oppo­sites, only facets of dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters. How women enact pow­er and sur­ren­der, desire and dri­ve, moth­er­ing and care. Wal­dron is a char­ac­ter her­self, pop­ping up in the spot­light (self-direct­ed) to tell us about her his­to­ry as an actor. She says “To be an old­er actress is a type of resis­tance, your very exis­tence onstage is an act of rebel­lion.” To see, and to be seen.