Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre
The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre.
We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew had. And so it becomes a lifelong friendship and rebellion against what young girls are supposed to be doing at every stage of their lives. But by the time they reach adulthood, the pressures - particularly for Andrée - with her pious mother and social expectations begin to take their toll.
Part autobiographical, the work was never published in her lifetime. Simone de Beauvoir deemed it as “too intimate” at the time. Much has been attempted to find out if they were, in fact, lovers. But if they were, this is not the point here. While it traces the real-life friendship between Simone de Beauvoir (Sylve) and writer Elisabeth Lacoin (Andrée), who died from encephalitis at age 21, the real intimacy is derived from exploring why two people connected and became lifelong friends.
Adapted for the stage by Grace Joy Howarth, it is a four-hander that focuses on the connection between the two women, which holds your attention throughout its two hours. The piece is set in two acts - childhood and adulthood. With much to cover, the simple staging and some clever projections bring this piece to life without intruding. Ayesha Ostler as the smart Sylvie and Laura Manela as the Andrée are brilliant as two naughty girls desperate to forge a different life. Alexandre Costet-Barmada and Caroline Trowbridge play a range of characters who thwart the ambitions of the girls who become young women trapped in a society that doesn’t seem to have a role that either of them wants.
Directed by Anastasia Bunce, The Inseparables is at the Finborough Theatre until 10 May.
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Photos by A.J. Halsey and Melanie Silva
