Here we go again: The Second Woman
On a 24-hour performance starring one woman and 100 men.
I’ve just returned to Belgrade having spent five days last week at the Wiener Festwochen - where, excitingly, I’ve been invited to join their new artistic advisory board, alongside some very cool people.
In a change from recent programming this week’s newsletter is not about the rise of authoritarianism or the growing threat to freedom of expression, but about a performance I’ve been fascinated with for some time and finally got a chance to see while in Vienna.
This is the part where I point out that if you want to support my writing and gain access to occasional paid subscriber bonus posts, you can do so for just £5 a month or £50 a year. Or, if that’s not doable - you work in theatre, I get it - just share this newsletter with someone you think might find it interesting. That helps too.
I’m a sucker for a theatrical marathon. I find durational work fascinating. Ten hours of Tomi Janežič? Bring it on. So I was delighted to discover that my trip to Vienna coincided with the Austrian incarnation of The Second Woman, a 24-hour performance in which a performer repeats a single scene 100 times opposite 100 different men or non-binary people. It is a test of stamina for the performer and a wonderfully compulsive experience for the audience. Created by Australian theatre makers Nat Randall and with Anna Breckon, it is inspired by Opening Night, the John Cassavetes film (also the inspiration for not one but two stage productions by Ivo van Hove).
Originally Randall performed the piece when they staged it in Australia, but when they started to tour the work internationally a different local performer has performed the piece each time. In New York it was Alia Shawkat - Maeby from Arrested Development. In London, where it was staged as part of LIFT, it was Ruth Wilson. When they perform it at the Cork Midsummer Festival in a couple of weeks time it will be Eileen Walsh. In Vienna, where I saw it, it was the Austrian actor Pia Hierzegger.
Wearing an ankle length vermillion dress and coiffed blonde wig, she starts the show by wheeling a drinks trolley into a red room which contains a couple of chairs, a table and a stereo. The words ‘The Second Woman’ are written in pink neon on the wall. The set is housed inside a glass cube. A large screen occupies one half of the stage, and two camera operators film each scene, allowing us to see what plays out inside the room in close-up.
The show consists of one single scene in which Hierzegger plays Virginia, a not wholly sober actress whose relationship is on the skids. Her partner arrives bearing take-out food and apologising for his earlier behaviour. He pours them both a drink, and she asks him for affirmation, that she is good, that she is talented, that she is enough. At some point during this exchange, she empties a box of noodles over him and turns on the music. They dance together, then she abruptly offers him fifty euros and tells him to leave. With that the scene resets and starts over.
In advance of the Vienna festival, a call out was issued: the Wiener Festwochen wants 100 men. Over 1000 responded and were duly whittled down. The men are given a script but do not meet Hierzegger or rehearse with her beforehand. Each scene begins with Hierzegger standing with her back to the door, so the audience sees each new man who comes in before she does. They enter, clutching their little bag of take out, and approach her from behind, whispering in her ear before she turns to greet them. While some of the men go off-piste, Hierzegger largely stays on-script, stumbling over the same patch of carpet at the exact same moment and eating a mouthful of, presumably cold, rice noodles (I doubt she’ll ever want to eat rice noodles again after this). At the end the men are given the choice to either say a departing “I love you” or “I never loved you.” Of the selection I saw around three-quarters chose the former.
The repetition really makes you appreciate the small variations in behaviour, how each man makes his entrance, how he pours the drinks, eats his noodles and how he approaches the final dance. Patterns emerge. A surprisingly large number of men serve themselves first. Some clink glasses with her, many do not. Some are nervous. Some are overly confident. Some softly spoke to the point it’s hard to hear them, some very obviously in performance mode. One guy gets the giggles. Another gets flummoxed by the chopsticks. Another starts singing snatches of ABBA including, somewhat tellingly, The Winner Takes It All. One guy, in what I really hope was a performative choice, comes across as a red flag on legs, leaving her to fetch her own drink, barely meeting her eyes, refusing to join her in the dance – Hierzegger does a kind of waggling ass-dance over him instead – basically radiating resentment. At the end he all but spits his final line at her (no prizes for guessing which option he chose).
Every person who comes through the door eventually gets noodled. Sometimes Hierzegger upends them in their laps. Occasionally she flings the whole carton at them. Sometimes she delicately drapes a noodle over their shoulder or knee. With one person she crafts them a little noodle neckerchief. One man has them deposited on his head (deservedly). Some continue to eat the crotchnudeln. Some fastidiously clean themselves up. A couple of them attempt to engage in a little 9½ Weeks-style food play. She even ends up Lady and the Tramping the noodles with one guy.
The dance offers the most space for variation – and power play. Once again, the man always approaches from behind. Hierzegger runs a hand through their hair (where hair is available) and then turns to face him. She consistently steers the scene away from sexy slow-dance territory. She never allows the men to twirl her, though many attempt it. Instead, she jiggles frenetically or goes ragdoll limp in their arms. She shimmies vigorously around them or clings to them like a limpet. With one particularly tall guy she climbs on a chair so she can be at his level. He scoops her up in his arms; from what I can tell, she seems to signal that this is OK. Another guy, however, grabs her and lifts her off her feet without seeking her permission. Many of the dances have an almost combative quality. There are honestly a couple who are lucky they don’t receive a knee in the nuts.
The 2023 London performance, which took place at the Young Vic, became one of the biggest theatre events of that year with some audience members queuing for hours for the chance of gaining entry, while others purchased advance tickets by time slot. In Vienna you could opt either for a 24-hour ticket or a 12-hour ticket, the latter of which ran from 10pm to 10am the following morning, presumably to keep the audience from thinning out during the small hours. I ended up seeing just under 12 hours of The Second Woman in two batches, five hours the first day (having a big plate of cheese Spätzle and a glass of wine beforehand was, with hindsight, not the best strategy in terms of keeping up energy levels) followed by a little under seven hours the following day. You can stay for as long as you like and come and go during the show, but the desire to stick around for just one more scene is strong.
When I come back the next day, having slept, breakfasted and drunk a significant quantity of coffee, Hierzegger is still going strong despite performing all through the night. She looks amazingly fresh, if anything she appears to be having more fun. She more overtly mirrors the poses of the men opposite her, parting her legs wide, or in one case planting her foot on the table (dude, don’t put your foot on the table). While Hierzegger goes easy on the shyer and more nervous men - there are some genuinely tender exchanges - she has less time for the cockier guys, the ones there to show off. She raises an exasperated eyebrow, she wrinkles her nose, she flings the noodles at them with more vigour. In the dance she also seems even more playful, throwing some wild shapes, nibbling on one guy’s beard and doing belly bumps with another, larger guy (at his instigation).
Watching these scenes play out is to watch the constant renegotiation of control. Many men attempt to ‘lead’ whether in the dance or in the scene more generally. However, she is always the one to end things, to give them the money and tell them to go (except for one young guy, who simply walks out midway during the dance). Given that so often a woman saying stop can be a trigger for violence, it feels significant that she is the one who gets so decisively to finish things. She is also the one to meticulously cleans up between encounters, picking the carpet clean of noodles, resetting the space, before sitting in her chair to await her next encounter, as piano music plays.
Maybe because it’s the same space in which I saw Carolina Bianchi’s The Bride and the Goodnight Cinderella last year, I found it impossible to watch without thinking about the ways in which women learn to anticipate and neutralise threats, how we too often have to deal with unwanted intimacy, how we learn to modify our behaviour, how we learn to bend around men. The knowledge that some men can’t take it when women break off relationships creates a subtle background hum of tension. It also becomes clear, after multiple cycles, how many men see this as a kind of competition, a sparring contest, a game they can win. You sometimes glimpse flashes of irritation. Some of the “I never loved yous” are said in a way that draws gasps from the audience.
Reading Arifa Akbar’s review of the London show – hardier than I, she stayed for the full 24 hours – it seems like in the Young Vic iteration, the men threw Wilson more curveballs and strayed further from the script. Several notable names also put in appearance, including Ben Whishaw, Edgar Wright, Idris Elba and Toby Jones. Andrew Scott got some noodles smooshed in his face. Here, aside from festival director Milo Rau, sporting his Republic of Love boilersuit, and a popular Austrian comedian, it was largely a stream of regular men and non-binary people - who from the sample I saw largely skewed white and middle aged - which I think is truer to the concept, the focus being less on who walks through the door next than on how Hierzegger engages with them, how she handles each situation, and how she weathers the fatigue – because, just to reiterate, she’s been doing this for 24-freaking-hours, and while her wig gets a little fried over time, she never seems to flag. It’s an incredible feat of endurance.
The ovation at the end was rightfully immense (and it was nice that the all-female technical crew also got to take a bow). As an audience member it was an addictive experience. You quickly fall into sync with the rhythm of the show, relaxing during the piano interludes, readying yourself for the next scene. While some of the interactions were cringe-inducing and others hilarious, taken together they were increasingly revealing about the role that control can play in male-female interactions. The whole experience was fascinating. My only regret was that I didn’t watch for longer.
This week in European theatre
A round-up of festivals, premieres and other upcoming events over the next seven days.
Taverna Miresia—Mario, Bella, Anastasia – Young Greek director Mario Banusi has quickly become a fixture on the international festival scene. UK audiences get their first chance to see his work this week when his 2023 show, the final piece in a loose trilogy exploring the rituals of mourning, plays the Coronet in London from 5-7 June.
Divadelná Nitra Festival -The 34th edition of the international theatre festival in Slovakia goes under the banner Right(s) Here, Right(s) now! Running for six days, from 6 -11 June, the programme features a mix of domestic and international work including Czech director Jan Mocek’s Wandervogel.
Ode to Violent Youth – German director Sebastian Nübling continues his exploration of live video with a new piece which sets out to dig beneath Basel’s pristine façade and expose its grubby unacknowledged underbelly. A spiritual sequel to Demons, his experiment in live cinema, it opens on 7 June as part of Social Fight Club, a two-week season of performance, talks and workshops.
Thanks for reading! If you have any feedback, tips, or thoughts about this newsletter, you can reach me on natasha.tripney@gmail.com