Tiddas | La Boite

‘Tiddas’ is a joint theatre production between La Boite Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and Brisbane Festival, and is based on Anita Heiss’ best-selling novel. The word ‘Tiddas’ is an Australian Aboriginal word meaning ‘sisters’. It is about five women that are best friends for decades dissecting each other’s lives and how they all carried a complex secret.

Chenoa Deemal and Anna McMahon. This image + cover image: Farley Ward

There were some elements from this show that I liked. The sound was cleverly utilised to transition between scenes, such as a phone ring, a doorbell, or a wine glass hitting. Transitional music was nicely matched to the scenes. The lighting was greatly used throughout. Costumes were contemporary and colourful, but they were not distracting, there was a suitable switch from casual to serious to dressy attire. I particularly liked how only one male actor portrayed different roles, utilising wardrobe changes rather than more male actors, which emphasised on the theme of females (Tiddas) strongly.  

What caught my attention was the seasonal change and setting in the staging production, as it went from Easter to Spring to Christmas, which it did not merely tell the timeline, but it beautifully represented features of Brisbane city, such as the jacaranda blossom season, Brisbane river, a local pub, and the birds chirping in the park.

Phoebe Grainer. Image: Farley Ward.

 Although the show touched based on several political topics, which include First Nations and white Australia racial issues, pregnancy, alcoholism. I felt the story was flat, fragmented and lacked structure. It left me wondering what the actual story was from the beginning to end. While it raised good issues, I felt that it failed to incorporate and address any strong messages on social and political issues within this context. For instance, the idea of common thread of book club meetings seems appealing, I thought it would be a great approach to launch a more in depth story of women or First Nations issues, the themes were present, however, it felt like a one long clichéd lifestyle lecture with the five women reading books, doing yoga, eating organic, buying your friends presents for special occasions, one character recently divorced, and another one fell pregnant. With the ending out of the way, I asked myself a genuine question. What was the message of this production? In the final scene, it mentioned “motherhood is only a part of a woman’s journey but not all”- but what about women that don’t want to be a mother? “after three decades of friendship, challenges and difficulties, our bodies are stronger than ever”- I’m not sure what I’ve learnt. They only dealt with every day drama. Perhaps take the title ‘Tiddas’, women supporting one another like sisters? Which is nothing new to me.

Roxanne McDonald and Shakira Clanton. Image: Farley Ward.

There were few moments of tension and conflicts in the show with some light humour. However, I found the writing a little too predictable. Whilst I liked the subtle education and some authentic moment to moment conversations in the performance, I personally couldn’t relate to any of the characters. In my opinion, the characters are all in their 40s, as a younger audience, the age and generation gap, aspirations differences, and the more experienced stage of life that those women live in provided the biggest barrier to me emotionally connecting with this set of characters. The experience of watching it seems similar to overhearing someone of my mother or grandmother’s generation gossiping about her friends’ lives, which I personally did not experience any of the topics. It also took me a while to warm up to the characters in the somewhat rushed and uneventful plot, that I found it difficult to develop a strong feeling.

There is a context to the play which must be remarked upon, which is the industry-wide dire lack of strong Aboriginal characters on our stage in general, and especially female Aboriginal characters. Despite the under-development of the characters, the actors performed the roles believably and naturally. It was truly delightful to see First Nations female characters on stage played by such fantastic calibre actors, and adapted from the book written by an Aboriginal author. Yet, it felt like a pity that the ultimate result felt somewhat one dimensional. It didn’t tell much about the historical and current different struggles First Nations women have, as it could just as easily have been with any five women with a social conscience regardless of race.

Overall, I am ambivalent about this show. I can appreciate some staging aspects, but it was disappointing that I didn’t find it compelling enough to pull me through that ‘Tiddas’ connection.