Judith: A Parting from the Body

Overview

As the great warrior-poet Margaret Thatcher once said, "being powerful is like being a lady; if you have to say you are, you aren't," and so it goes with Cathy Hunt’s production of Judith: A Parting from the Body.

This revisionist take on the biblical story of Judith — courtesy of British playwright Howard Barker — toys with the idea that seduction can play on the vulnerabilities of both parties. Where the Hebrew tale has the Jewish widow calculatingly ingratiate herself with the general of an invading army before ultimately beheading him, Barker's version inserts layers of romantic nuance.

It’s no new tack to repaint Judith as a seductress; you could argue the role is implicit in the original story. (Judith murders the general Holofernes in his sleep.) But Barker extrapolates further: What if Judith falls for the man she plans to postcoitally behead? What if the Holofernes sees what is coming but is drawn to Judith regardless? And what is the emotional cost of investing in someone only to destroy them?

These are all ripe scenarios, but Barker addresses them here with painfully turgid dialogue, which Hunt's direction and the small cast do little favour with a 'louder equals more dramatic!' reading. Which is a shame, as Judith's is an inherently visceral story, having piqued noted wild man Caravaggio’s interest, among others. But this production stretches too far for emotional heft, undercutting the story's existing impact by reaching too hard for more.

All three characters — Holofernes (Benedict Samuel), Judith (Luisa Hastings Edge) and her servant and partner-in-crime (Anna Houston) — wax philosophical (and melodramatic) about sex in the shadow of death. But the three dance around the leads’ will-they-or-won’t-they courtship with all the emotional nuance of virginal teenagers ("I’m a killer, I know not looooove," etc), laying a poor foundation for the emotional notes the play eventually has to hit.

To be fair, this doesn't completely sap the production's appeal. In a roundabout way, the characters' initial ineffectualness makes Holofernes' death all the more jarring. When the play leads where it inevitably has to, the sudden absence of one of the previously verbose characters tells. Likewise, the dynamics that follow between a shattered Judith and her more pragmatic servant are genuinely interesting. Judith's movement through shock and loss to something more cold-hearted is powerful stuff (though, again, overplayed). But these moments don't have the heft that a lighter touch would have afforded. When the preceding hour's performance hasn't rung true, it's difficult to muster the necessary shock when Judith cries over a bloody sack containing her would-be paramour's head.