Mariage Blanc

Overview

Mariage Blanc is not for the faint hearted. It tells the story of the fraught sexual awakening of Bianca (Paige Gardiner); a young woman kept in the dark about the birds and the bees towards the end of the 19th Century. The more she learns about sex the less she likes it, so she demands a non-physical arrangement with her husband, Benjamin (Gig Clarke). To be fair, the meter-long penises and enormous aureola on stage are enough to put anyone off copulating for at least one evening, if not longer. Be warned this is not a date night play, unless you are wooing a virile nudist with a taste for the grotesque.

Polish playwright Tadeusz Rózewicz wrote the play in 1975 and its setting in the sexually timid 19th century makes it a sort of ode to the sexual revolution of the 70s. Putting it on in today’s sexually permissible culture means that the dichotomy of repression versus liberation is not as relevant as the other more interesting themes of asexuality and feminism. Bianca is certainly no triumph of independence, but her attempts at holding power over her body and gender are admirable and Gardiner manages to pull off the frigid, awkward character with suitable detachment.

Sarah Giles’s direction is detailed and structured, but there comes a point where the vulgarity turns into noise and loses effect. A few moments break this up, such as an effective freeze of all characters in their nude suits leaving Bianca in the spotlight to explain her plight to the audience as well as some beautiful silences. These moments of stillness give the production some of the gravity it needs, but not quite enough. Macabre only works if the play is as serious as it is funny, but the balance here is tilted towards hammy revue.