Love, honor and obey

I see the press release describes Jean Anouilh's play as 'sex-soaked'. What a funny expression. Well, it does take place in a theatre in Paris in 1900... but sex-soaked? Some of us are, some of the time.

It is a lovely play. It is about the various angles of relationships between men and women. You get the young romantics, you get the cynics like Mademoiselle Colombe, the character I play, men running after the young girls, their attitudes and why. The point about Anouilh is that he is always funny. He makes serious comments about relationships but it never stops being funny, which is great to play.

My character is a monster. She is a control freak. She is a famous actress and feels the whole world should revolve around her. In fact the whole world does revolve around her because she is the star of all the plays. She says the curtain will go up when she is ready, and she keeps the audience waiting for hours.

She has two sons. One she can't stand because he comes from a relationship she wasn't happy about. She left thishusband in less than a month, but unfortunately for her she was pregnant. But she loved the next husband, who was a jockey, oddly enough, so she cares about that son. He is part of the theatre, and he understands her, that she is frightfully dramatic the whole time.

Anouilh's work is absolutely relevant today. Although the dialogue is different, the attitudes of men to women and women to men don't change much throughout the years. I know we are supposed to have new men, and women are supposed to be liberated - but actual thoughts are not that different through the ages.