The Rivers Of China

This is a tale of oppression of both sexes, mainly women, that begs us to question who is allowed to be an artist, and when. We watch scenes from the 1920s and contemporary Melbourne, as originally written by Alma De Groen. In the past, Katherine Mansfield is a wife and aspiring writer suffering from TB, who travels to Fontainbleu to be cured by an eccentric alternative practitioner, George Gurdjieff (Rob Meldrum). Alexandra Aldrich as Mansfield is superb, carrying the play with realistic feebleness, longing for a freer time, aggravated by Gurdjieff’s nonsensical, sexist methods. 

In the future, for her, 2015, there are no male writers or poets. Men are nurses, women are doctors, everything is reversed and viewed as dystopian by The Man (James Cook). We watch The Man awake from a coma, hypnotised into believing he is Katherine Mansfield. He is a woman trapped inside a man’s body in a society that oppresses men. James Cook is explosive, well timed, vulnerable and indefatigable on stage; truly a pleasure to watch. 

Hearing gender oppression through men’s voices provides the audience unique insights into a hypothetical society without violence against women, missing persons and glass ceilings. De Groen makes gender stereotype all the more ludicrous by creating this flipped scenario. The play definitely asks larger questions of how we view writing created by men and women, and systematically explains how our vocal disdain for oppression is viewed in a gendered way. This performance tackles such subjects, bringing a lightness and humour to them that is often difficult to achieve.