“Who’s the real bitch now?”

Reviewer: Lee Min Jie
Performance: 21 January 2016

BITCH: The Origin of the Female Species is a simple story revolving around a dog whose master suffers a stroke after losing his wife to dementia.

The problem is – things are never that simple.

Edith Podesta has the enviable ability to complicate seemingly simple scenarios and pile on layers of meaning.

I remember being drawn to the title and all its associations. As the show progresses, I quickly realise that Podesta has actively interrogated the definition of the word “bitch”.

First she brings it back to its origins – a female dog – making me feel ashamed for thinking the play is about the now common use of the term.

Then she performs the canine, enthralling me with the way she arches her neck, shapes her fingers into paws and sniffing around as if her nose was a dog’s snout. Then, she starts talking. If dogs truly think the way she thinks they do, I assure you the human race is not the superior race.

Multimedia inserts are creatively integrated into this play making it a visual spectacle. The lights from an open door (the result of a forgetful master) signals the passing of day. The animation serving as a backdrop to the literal blurring of characters when Podesta assumes the role of the dog. The well-timed sounds of chaos, and rain and wind, reflect the inner turmoil and nature respectively.

But it is the projection of a futuristic-looking cosmos onto the set that took my breath away. The darkness melts the set and the audience into one. The space whisks us off wordlessly on a journey with Podesta into the mind of her master who suffers from aphasia.

As if on cue to offer a respite, a surprise actor makes an entrance much to the delight of audiences. Keeping in line with Podesta’s point about language, this actor communicates without speaking a single word.

Catch this play to be schooled on how words, or the lack of, can play an important role in your relationships.

“A raw and intelligent exploration on gender and species”

Reviewer: Meera Nair
Performance: 21 January 2016

Edith Podesta’s BITCH: The Origin Of The Female Species is an intellectual exercise packaged in a more pleasing form than textbooks. It is feminist, but it’s also very human. It delves into personal stories but also explores wider issues relating to patriarchy and gender differences. This is a lesson that keeps you interested, and at no point do you feel the urge to walk off and raid the fridge instead.

Central to this lesson is the idea of a ‘bitch’. She’s an ‘unfeminine’ woman, one who needs to be suppressed for the patriarchal system to remain unchallenged. Yet she is also a female dog, one who provides loving companionship . Through the bitch and the human (or rather, hu-MAN, the ‘storytelling animal’), Podesta explores issues ranging from the divisions between genders, divisions between species and companionship.

By juxtaposing the woman/bitch, dog/bitch and man, the play shows rather than tells how gender differences are treated as species differences. Ironically, it is the dog/bitch and man, who are of different species, that form a closer bond than the woman/bitch and man. Podesta’s script is beautifully poetic, despite the seriousness of the subject matter. The storytelling is the best part of this play. From start to finish, it hooks and draws you in. The play is free from theatrics, and Podesta and Helmut Bakaitis give performances that are very natural and raw.

The performance space itself is integrated seamlessly into this play. The wooden floor and wooden doors are part of what the dog/bitch sees. The backstage door is used to good effect when it is partially opened to allow light to stream in, giving the impression of light filtering into a home through half-opened windows. In fact, the use of lighting in the whole performance is very effective in conveying the mood of the moment – whether introspective, optimistic or dark. For the audience, all these work towards making the performance more believable and real within that performance space.

What I find interesting is that an actual dog makes an appearance at the end of the play. It’s a brave move, since animals are unpredictable. However, the collective ‘awww’ and squeals of ‘so cute’ following the dog’s appearance pretty much show that the audience has left the play and are enraptured by the canine presence.