Sydney Reviews

Fasten your seat belts, you’re in for a bumpy ride. Bette & Joan isn’t all about Eve but about the bitchy battle between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford during the making of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

In Bette & Joan, playwright Anton Burge’s two-hander pulls back the curtain on the set of a film that was supposed to rekindle waning careers but ignited old enmities. Egos clashed, tempers flashed, vulnerability and venom made visible. Viper tongue and vampire fang are given invective vocabulary as these two queens of the silver screen prepare to usher in the scream queen era.

With Jeanette Cronin as Bette Davis and Lucia Mastrantone as Bette’s Bête noire, Joan Crawford, the production has a formidable cast well disposed to stage an iconic battle of barbs, ambition and brilliance.

Cronin has been diving into Davis for over a decade delivering a symbiotic portrayal of the diva in various plays, a theatre magician creating an acting alchemy. From the opening scene, her physiological resemblance to Bette Davis is striking, but as the narrative evolves, the resemblance ratchets to remarkable, exceeding mere impression, exalting in a reincarnation.

Mastrantone is equally mesmerising as clean freak Crawford, Pepsi and vodka dipso, and wire coat hanger phobic.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? was a third time Oscar shot for Bette Davis. She didn't win. Anne Bancroft won and Joan Crawford accepted it on her behalf! But the picture did win an Academy Award for Best Costume Design by Norma Koch.

Bette & Joan has a costume and set design by Grace Deacon. The costumes are Oscar worthy but the set design has some sight line issues due to the dressing room mirror configuration.

There is extensive use of projected images throughout the production, both recorded and live, that tend to dissipate the drama. They feel like documentary fillups, a sort of behind the scenes for dummies who don't know their classic film history.

Bette & Joan works best when the flesh and blood characters take centre stage and go hammer and tongs. So much so, one dreams of a staging of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? with these two stars.