The Coven On Grey Street

Out to Circa Theatre again, to see some witches. But first, dinner at a nearby eatery, as is tradition. This time we returned to Highwater, as we’d enjoyed it last time we were there. We shared plates of burrata, snapper crudo, and roast whole flounder. All very tasty, and this is now on our list of regular haunts. Nicola was on ushing duty again, so we hied across the road so that she could report for work.

The Coven On Grey Street is a play about witches, although they prefer to be called Weird Sisters. There’s three of them, as is tradition, and you’ve met them before, in many guises. They’re as old as time, and go by various names, but are currently using Fay, Daphne and Sybil. They were on that blasted heath with Macbeth, and have been seen, and persecuted, throughout history. Now they’ve retired to Hamilton in New Zealand, a place where they can stay out of the way and not be noticed. They’ve been living separately, but are now assembled because Something Has Happened. Daphne has fallen in love, and is getting married, to a man 6,000 years her junior.

Her sisters aren’t happy with this state of affairs, and try to talk her out of it. We meet her intended, Ted, a professor of English specialising in Shakespeare. Who’da thought it? Turns out, Daphne has let on that she and her sisters are Weird, and he’s a superfan. Ted is doing everything he can to win over the sisters and gain their approval, so that the wedding can go ahead. And it does, they are wed, and Act One ends.

We were enjoined to depart the auditorium for the interval, as there were rearrangements to the set required which we should not witness. When we returned, the witches were all tied up, to the pohutukawa tree that is central to the set! Telling Ted that they were witches was a fatal mistake, because he’s not really in love with Daphne; this was just a ploy to get her to marry him, as the sisters are immune to death, except by the hand of their family…and Ted is now family! Also, he’s the Witchfinder General. What follows is a life-and-death struggle between the sisters and Ted. There can only really be one outcome.

Along the way there is philosophising, backstabbing, general chat, discussions on what Shakespeare was really like, and general tomfoolery. It ends with a big showdown, and a resolution of sorts is reached. They decide that rather than go their separate ways, they'll form (re-form?) a coven. On Grey Street.

What the play really provides is three meaty parts for older actors to really get their teeth into, and boy, do they go for it! Without hamming it up, the three sisters are played with relish by three women of an age that is usually consigned to playing granny roles.