The Snow White Conspiracy

‘The Snow White Conspiracy’ is being presented by the undergraduate students of the School of Social Sciences with the Faculty of Arts and Education at the Nexus Theatre, in the grounds of Murdoch University at 7.30 nightly until 8^th November.

In this austere treatment of the fairy tale by Howard Barker, the cruel Queen is now the central character, flaunting her depraved sexuality. The play moves back in time to create an entirely different legend.

       Princess Snow White (Lee Quek) is taking a walk in the forest, when she spies her stepmother, the Queen (Karen Corby), as she displays her nakedness to the local forester (Katrina Johnston). The impotent King (Scott Suffling) knows about these goings-on, and even forms a cult for the Queen’s amorous followers. Snow White, who has always been considered to be one of the purest of all children’s book characters, is now determined to outdo her stepmother’s debauchery by making advances to the same forester and then sleeping with seven men in the forest.
       At first, the King seemed to get satisfaction from his wife’s adultery, but eventually the cuckolded husband regards each misdemeanour as a personal attack and so decides to get rid of his Queen, a woman that he has abused for years.
       In the final scene, when the wicked stepmother appears at the marriage of Snow White to her Irish Prince (Geoff Kenny), she is forced to put on red-hot iron shoes and ordered to dance until she drops dead, however she is determined to suffer in silence and does not dance a step. A counterpoint to the blissful ending of Snow White. (Was this the original idea for the ‘Red Shoes’ which has already had two versions in Perth in the last month?)

UK writer, Howard Barker, is renowned for reworking well-known texts. A similar Murdoch team produced the superb ‘Gertrude the Cry’ earlier in the year, here his play ‘Knowledge and a Girl (The Snow White Case)’ is highly sanitised and adapted by the Murdoch students, being presented as ‘The Snow White Conspiracy’, an extraordinarily, unconventional theatre production.

Generally, Barker’s stories take you from a happy beginning, to the inevitable tragic ending. With ‘Snow White’ however, he draws on the characters of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, and in revealing the intimate and inner feelings of the individuals, he reverses their personalities. He goes on to show how easily a young girl’s innocence can be deceived, ruining a life in the process.

The lighting and projected visuals were truly professional. The sound, especially of the mirrors breaking, was amazing. Sumptuous costumes and wonderful sets. Clever technical effects, culminating in the burning shoes. A good comedy spot with the three Minnie Mouse-like servants.

Serge Tampalini (his 4th or 5th Barker play?) and Naomi Terpsis directed this complex, but fascinating, study of human nature. The direction was excellent, with rapid pace and generally good acting (especially Lee Quek and Karen Corby), but I feel that Barker’s works demand an advanced level of acting, by mature actors who are happy to perform well outside their comfort zone. Whilst this team did their very best, I felt that the choice of play was wrong for this cast. Most of the author’s inspired writing, insinuations and finer points of the multifaceted characters were lost.

An admirable, technically stunning play.