Boston Marriage

David Mamet usually writes about American men, tense plays with ranting male anger, lies and expletives. Responding to criticism that he delivers poor roles for women, the famous American writer went the whole hog and wrote a play about late 19th century lesbians -“ and included a juicy part for his wife.

Gaiety Theatre is now staging Boston Marriage for Mardi Gras. The title was the term used to describe women of the time who lived together without the financial or emotional need of men.

Anna, as we see from her ridiculous necklace, gets by thanks to a sugar daddy, but she pines still for Claire, despite her former lover’s now swooning for a younger lady. For each, these melodramas of the heart and of the pocket come to nought and the women are left together speculating on living and loving in a men’s world.

Not that this strange play offers any major social or psychological insights, queer or otherwise. What redeems it is Mamet’s relish for a heightened language of declaration, a mix of profanities, abuse and society-speak with which the woman play out their conversation like an obscene scene from Oscar Wilde.

Through all the elaborate insults and agonies, there is a sort of Sapphic lushness as the corseted women swoon around the stage. But for director Stephen Colyer the challenge is to dig out the nuances and emotional truth to bring a well-paced life to this artifice. And in this he fails.

We are left with an avalanche of verbosity and non sequiturs, relieved only by the occasional arrival of the Scottish maid. This curious role, played with a fixed intensity by Sara Grenfell, nudges the play further from parody into a type of absurdist S&M.

Di Smith, familiar to fans of The Great Outdoors and A Country Practice , makes a statuesque stab at the role of the older woman, Anna. And Amanda Bishop is suitably dizzy in towering blond wig as Claire.

Underneath their constant banter there are some poignant truths about aging and unrequited love, lust and commitment. But little of this seems to hit home with them emotionally and, in the rush of delivery, is lost on us.

They may complain about the unjust world of beguiling men but the girls it seems are similarly tedious and soulless, at least in this Boston Marriage.

Boston Marriage is at the Darlinghurst Theatre until 24 February.