Photo Credit: Nic Umbs
The year is 1808 in a cell on a prison ship. Hundreds of female convicts are being transported over a five-month voyage from London, England, to Sydney, Australia, to serve out their sentences. Female Transport by Steve Gooch focuses on six of those women in chains, focusing on the trials and tribulations they endure in this well-staged production defined by some very fine acting.
Produced by UW-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts’ Department of Theater, plays like First Transport give UWM theater majors the chance to perform in front of an audience, honing their skills in an intimate space in the school’s Kenilworth building. There are a minimum of sets and props; the focus is on the storytelling. Guiding the transport of this “ship” is associate professor Bill Watson, who directed with an all-knowing sense of understanding each actor’s abilities to bring out the very best in them as an ensemble. He’s paced production to highlight the physical and mental deterioration of convicts and jailers between the two acts, and the momentum builds as conditions decline.
The playwright clearly understands the hardships of such a voyage, and the dialogue and ensuing actions realistically portray it: verbal, physical and sexual abuse of the women convicts by their domineering male jailers; unsanitary living conditions rife with the endless possibilities of disease; little food and water; cramped quarters; boredom, and, at times, death before journey’s destination. And again, those chains, binding their feet and movement like circus animals in training.
The ensemble of six women and four men perform admirably, but in First Transport, it’s most certainly a woman’s world, even in the leaky bowels of this floating prison. The six female actors flesh out their roles and create three-dimensional characters within a loose social hierarchy. They share common themes of petty larceny to “the game” (slang for prostitution), but beneath their scarred, tough exteriors lie scared, wounded vulnerabilities.
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Lacey Tatro’s Nance showcases just such a range in a completely naturalistic way, as does Jenna Martinez as the matronly Madge. Mallory Giesen has a quiet yet commanding presence as the group’s “mother,” and as two convicted friends, Alayna Perry (Sarah) and Kazoua Thao (Winnie) are highly believable in their unshakeable bond. It’s the “quiet” one, Pitty, a challenging study of growing mental instability and outbursts, that captivates; Chloe Attalla provides a sad yet beautiful restraint to this tragic character. The male actors supply solid support: Captain (Benjamin Gierke), Sarge (Patrick Green), Surgeon (Stefano Peralma) and Tommy (Luca Clesceri).
As Nance so wisely points out toward journey’s end, “The next day is all we got.” In Female Transport, the goal is not the destination but the journey itself—and surviving it.
