KEY POINTS:
Some 38 years after it was published, Germaine Greer's feminist polemic, The Female Eunuch, still packs a punch. Just ask Brooke Williams, who stars in the Auckland Theatre Company's comedy The Female of the Species.
The play, written by Australian Joanna Murray-Smith, was inspired by Greer's experience in 2000 when she was held hostage by a female intruder in her home. Williams, 24, decided reading Greer's book would be useful research but did not expect strangers on buses, trains and ferries to demand her opinion of it.
"People recognise the cover immediately," she says. "One man told me, 'That book made my life hell', and another woman told me it changed her life. Then there was the woman who asked me whether I agreed with it. When I said I thought some of the ideas were dated and that she [Greer] made too many assumptions about the roles of men and women, this woman said: 'It hurts my heart to hear you say that.' It turned out she had never even read it."
Williams is ambivalent about the book. While she admires women like Greer for challenging convention, she thinks the message was too strident. That it may have changed over the years doesn't upset her. "Changing ideology makes sense because the world changes," she says.
The Female of the Species sets out to explore feminism's social legacy by taking a humorous look at its sometimes mixed messages and quixotic proclamations.
Williams plays disturbed young student Molly Rivers who arrives at the country home of feminist author Margot Mason (played by Elizabeth Hawthorne).
On deadline and suffering writer's block, Margot attempts to see off the seemingly sycophantic Molly but it is soon clear the young woman has more sinister reasons for visiting.
"Molly is angry about all the conflicting and contradictory opinions that Margot has put forward," says Williams.
"In her books, she has told women to 'delete dependency' and not have children because motherhood robs them of their vitality; in another she says motherhood is the only path to true happiness. Molly wants answers as to what Margot really thinks."
While Murray-Smith used Greer's unfortunate experience as the play's start point, Elizabeth Hawthorne says Margot Mason is not an incarnation of Greer.
"Even before we started rehearsals, I decided that this story is about Margot Mason, whom I was interested in exploring as a character in her own right. She is more than enough to contend with, thank you very much. She is marvellous, a real monster but, from an actor's point of view, completely wonderful."
Nevertheless, Hawthorne thought it might be interesting to look at Greer's most famous book. She bought a copy of The Female Eunuch shortly after it was published in 1970 but says it disappeared when she was moving house.
"I think someone must have decided it was not worthy of a place on the bookshelf."
Hawthorne recalls that she "dipped" into the book but didn't enjoy the writing and Greer's argument seems unclear to her. She much prefers Simone de Beauvoir's work The Second Sex. "That is extremely well written and very clearly argued."
She has a similar opinion of Murray-Smith's The Female of the Species, describing the language, the punctuation and the rhythm of the piece as very specific. "It is clever, incisive and insightful. I am enjoying it thoroughly."
She also enjoys working alongside Williams. "There are, unfortunately, a lot of young actresses today whose primary motivation is fame. They don't want to act at all, really, so it's never about the work but all about them. Brooke is the absolute antithesis of that. Her heart is in the right place."
Williams has appeared in two Auckland Theatre Company shows, The Crucible and The Pillowman, but Molly Rivers is her biggest role to date.
"I don't think about it like that because then it's hard not to become self-conscious and put undue pressure on yourself," she says. "I just think, this is the piece of work in front of me and there is a story to be told, so how best can I tell it?"
The drama also stars Hera Dunleavy, Adam Gardiner, Michael Keir-Morrissey and Brian Manthenga.
What: The Female of the Species.
Where and when: Maidment Theatre, May 1-24.
