Some Woman: Anne-Marie Duff returns in misogyny drama

Anne-Marie Duff gives a fine performance of harried, slowly ramping desperation in this bleak drama about the hostility and unfairness women face in society. It’s good to have this subtle, heartfelt actress back, after two years away from the limelight, in a story that feels both horribly timely and horribly timeless.

The title of Helen Edmunson’s play is apt, suggesting the casual dismissal of half the population (but also the opposite). Her script is punchy but schematic, though, with situations and characters arranged to push Duff’s Julie Robson toward a series of brinks. Blanche McIntyre’s brisk production descends quite often into a shouting match.

Julie is a school administrator and a divorced mother to two grown girls: Kate (Hannah Onslow), a brusque, scientific high-flier and Ginny (Grace Doherty), a depressive who may finally be strong enough to go to university. Julie’s ex Richard (Geoffrey Streatfeild) has therefore come over to action the sale of the house he left.

But while waiting for her train home, Julie is accosted by a young boy who asks her the time then laughingly calls her a “f***ing bitch!”. Shaken and quietly angry, she contacts his headmaster and insists he is given a talking-to. Without giving too much away, a counter-claim is made, one that involves the police. Events then escalate very quickly.

The fear that any challenge to the countless, careless incivilities of modern life will trigger a backlash – plus the particular caution about confronting a minor – is surely familiar to both men and women. But Julie’s case compounds a lifetime lived under looming, sometimes subtle, always prevalent misogyny.

Ioanna Kimbook (Celia) and Anne-Marie Duff (Julie) in Some Woman at the National Theatre.

Ellie Kurttz

She is of the generation who expected more than their working class mothers – and who now suffer offhand ageism. Events around her university romance with Richard stalled her academic promise and subsequently her career choices.

When he later left her for another woman and a stellar media career, chief responsibility for parenting fell on her. So did the emotional Molotovs of implacable Kate and fragile Ginny. A younger male colleague constantly phones her with idiotic questions. No one has noticed that the dishwasher is broken.

The boy’s random insult is just the latest manifestation of a disrespect – a hatred - towards women hard-wired into society. Asked by her (symbolically pregnant) solicitor if anything in her past might have prompted an anger towards men, Julie recalls a childhood molestation by her grandfather’s friend and a life of “being groped… chased through subways, forced to have sex when I didn’t want to”. Blithely, the solicitor asks if she’s going through the menopause – that could be useful.

Much of Edmundson’s writing is eloquent, particularly Julie’s elucidation of her own lurch toward despair, and her paean to motherhood. But some of it is clunky beyond belief from a writer who is usually adroit.

“The world – the WORLD is responsible,” Julie declares at one point, apropos Ginny’s psychological problems. Well, um, yeah, okay. Similarly, a scene of gathering menace between Julie and a character played by Stephen Wight is spoiled by over-emphatic, over-literal dialogue.

The police officers, the solicitor and the headmaster are barely sketched in. Julie’s daughters and her ex aren’t much more fully fleshed. McIntyre seems happy for each to riff on a single emotional trope.

Which means Some Woman is effectively a vehicle for a single idea – that women, the bringers of life, are hated by men – expressed through Duff. And she mostly does it beautifully, though some of the more indigestible speeches seem to stick in her throat. This play made me feel guilty and ashamed on behalf of my gender. I loved Duff’s performance but I don’t entirely buy it.