Vanities

By Jack Heifner Circa Theatre Dir. Susan Wilson

"The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing... All is vanity and a striving after wind" Ecclesiastes 8...14

"Yes, this is Vanity Fair: not a moral place certainly; nor a very merry one, though very noisy. Look at the faces of the actors and buffoons when they come from their business and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits down to dinner." William Thackeray, "Before the Curtain", introduction to Vanity Fair.

The directorial emphasis of Vanities is on the theme of vanity. The actresses remain onstage throughout the performance and make their make-up and costume changes in full view of the audience. This works on two levels: firstly, by casting doubt on the characters' care and attention to the socially rewarding activity of cheerleading in school and later college, and secondly, seeing the actresses make-up, as well as lighting and set being used to heighten the division between the acting and preparation areas, stresses the fictional status of the play.

That "All is vanity and striving after wind" is seen in the playwright's refusal to provide a resolution or an alternative to what he has undermined - Vanities is essentially an amoral play. Within a conventional sense of morality, it is possible to see Joanne as moral, Mary as immoral, and Kathy, by the end, as amoral. Kathy (Jane Waddell) becomes the writer's spokesperson. She has no answer and still does not know what she wants, except that in the last line of the play she rejects the three friends' past. In the first two scenes she is the buoyant organiser who has to have a plan for everything, but by the end of the second scene confesses that she no longer fully believes in the search for popularity.

In the third scene, the three meet after six years. The lighting has changed the colour of the set from a golden to a hard yellow. Although not a feminist play, their diversification shows the expansion of occupations for women. There is a final confrontation between the sophisticated Mary (Heather Lindsay) who always wanted to do as she pleased, and is now a porn-art seller, and Joanne (Deidre O'Connor) who is a wife and mother and wants nothing to have changed. The disillusioned but independent Kathy questions the intentions of all three and is the only one to state her dissatisfaction. This makes the others look as if they are only pretending to be happy.