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.