Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Double Indemnity is both gorgeous to look at and a great romp. Tom Holloway’s adaptation of James M Cain’s noir novel is slick, director Sam Strong’s direction is fluid, and the design team has excelled themselves in the realisation of its smoky, 1940s California.
But MTC’s show is not so much a loving homage to a bygone era as it is a postcard from a rapidly fading view of the world. The bold costume design flatters the stereotypes it presents, but the image of “woman” that floats across the lightscapes of the stage are more a reminder of what male writers such as Cain used to think about women, rather than what women theatre-makers do.
Phyllis, for instance, is clung in silk: the femme fatale, she lures her male prey into a web of deceit and murder. The girlishness of her virginal stepdaughter Lola provides a direct contrast – but Phyllis is eventually unspun by the plain, hardworking Nettie: the maternal and unrewarded office assistant, dressed in dour beige, who twigs to the mechanics of Phyllis’s plan.
