REVIEW: The Handmaid’s Tale at the London Coliseum by Maxine Morse, 8 April 22

You would need to be quite disturbed to categorise Poul Ruders’ opera of The Handmaid’s Tale as entertainment but this performance nonetheless keeps the viewer transfixed throughout.

The Handmaid’s Tale ENO The Handmaid’s Tale, 22, Pumeza Matshikiza, Rhian Lois, Kate Lindsey © Catherine Ashmore

Based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, the opera depicts a future police state where women who have been living in sin, or who are in second marriages, are forced to act as surrogates for the childless leaders of the State of Gilead. Women are defined by their fertility and child bearing capabilities. Their emotions and actions are governed by a rule-bound theocracy.

The opera opens with Professor Pieixoto (Camille Cottin) explaining how the USA has been taken over by right-wing fundamentalists who have rolled back the progress and freedoms of women in early 21st century America. The discovery of a handmaid’s diary allows Offred’s (Kate Lindsey) story to be told. Camille Cotton seems lost – a slight, white-suited figure stranded on a podium…really, we want less chat so our dystopian nightmare can begin.

There is no sisterhood, no female fraternity, in Gilead. Aunt Lydia (Emma Bell) leads an indoctrination centre where the handmaids are stripped of everything that makes them human. We witness mental breakdowns, flashbacks and thoughts of escaping until the women enter a docile state and graduate.

The role of the handmaid is to act as a surrogate. Offred’s vocals convey the alarm, sadness and distress of her plight. She is held down by the wife (Avery Amereau) while her husband, The Commander (Robert Hayward) attempts to impregnate her. All erotic touching is strictly forbidden. Any transgressions are punished by the women being sent to work in a brothel, or to hard labour in the Colonies.

Annemarie Woods has designed a barren set encased by NHS hospital grade, green-grey curtains onto which grainy, celluloid films are shown of Offred’s previously happy life with her husband and child. The props of clinical apparatus and educational flip-charts evoke the birth control clinics of the 1960s. The red costumes of the handmaids represent nuns’ habits. Their uniformity makes it hard to distinguish between the opera cast. These are in direct contrast to the blue 1950’s frock of Serena Joy which is straight out of a 1950’s fashion magazine.

The music is scratchy and screechy with discordant percussion pieces punctuated by a few bars of Bach and Amazing Grace. The orchestra, conducted by Joana Carneiro, intentionally creates a background track to the action, rather than obviously supporting the voices. Ruders writes intentionally for the edge of what the performers’ voices can manage…their voices strain at the high notes which serves to underline that the inhabitants of the state of Gilead under continual strain.

Atwood is famed for having said that her novel contains nothing that hasn’t already happened in the world, or isn’t currently happening. Expect to be assaulted by historical and political allusions…the storming of the White House by Trump supporters, the rollback of women’s rights in Afghanistan, the separation of families by gun-toting soldiers which evoke the distressing, present day reality of the Ukrainian conflict.

Annilese Miskimmon (ENO Artistic Director) makes her debut as an opera director for the ENO with this performance. She should be commended for taking on such a challenging and feminist piece of work, although for some of us it left a bitter taste.

Performing The Handmaid’s Tale echoes the reasons why Holocaust education is considered important; to never forget, so we never repeat the mistakes of history. Human love, emotion and the things that make us human need to resist regulation by politics, education and organised religion.

Maxine Morse  wrote this review of The Handmaid’s Tale as part of her opera critics training at the English National Opera. To see other reviews from her training see The Valkyrie, HMS Pinafore, Satyagraha, Cosi Fan Tutte, The Cunning Little Vixen and La Boheme.

Blog • See