By Emma Wright. Director: Janine Watson. New Ghosts Theatre Company. Old Fitz Theatre. 21 Aug – 6 Sept, 2026

Reviewed : 30 August, 2026

Harlots they weren’t! But William Shakespeare allowed them to be seen as such. They were wrongly accused, publicly shamed and wrongfully condemned, just as in the four hundred years since their time thousands of other women have been falsely blamed, cruelly treated, often killed …

Emma Wright doesn’t let her love of Shakespeare obscure the fact that the women in his plays have for four centuries “formed a blueprint” for how women are seen and treated. In Harlots she takes six of Shakespeare’s female characters, from four of his plays, and shows how their stories “are not isolated tragedies but recurring patterns”.

Concealed in an underground refuge Hermione (A Winter’s Tale), Hero (Much Ado About Nothing) and Helena (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) await atonement from the men who wronged them. The are protected by Hermione’s faithful maid Paulina and visited by Hero’s cousin Beatrice and Hamlet’s cruelly rejected Ophelia.

They are, as Wright acknowledges, “intelligent, articulate (albeit with 16% of the dialogue)” yet between them they suffer false accusation, physical abuse, forced medication, substance use, coercive control, infanticide and suicide. In their “haven built for wounded maids” they await atonement from the men who shamed them, albeit if it is, in Hermione’s case, a statue raised 16 years later.

Wright cleverly uses lyrical language and rhythmic patterns that allow the characters to stay in their sixteenth century setting yet reference sad contemporary parallels, culminating in a stirring, aspirational monologue that passionately identifies all the things that women are and can be.

Kate Beere creates a gloomy “fleeting shelter” where tree roots decorate the muddy wall and spluttering lamps throw shadows (lighting Luna Yuet Yee Ng) while Paulina ministers lulling tinctures with a watchful eye. The costumes designed by Aloma Barnes Siraswar identify the characters, Hermione in the clothes she collapsed in years before, Hero escaping in her wedding gown, Helena bloodied from the woods. Paulina, a servant still, replaces them with home spun robes. But not Ophelia, drifting in and out in silk and watery weeds.

In their haven the “wounded maids” remind us of their fate in the world above. Megan O’Connell is a sad and resigned Hermione, mourning a life that was, her reputation falsely tarnished, her newborn son wrested from her arms, her daughter exiled, lost.  Madelin Li is a confused and heart-broken Hero. Rejected on her wedding day with accusations of infidelity, she stumbles and sinks into despair despite Beatrice’s (Jo Downing) urging to have faith and hope.

Ella Prince plays Helena who, after facing interference from the spirit world, and horrid rejection and abuse, sustains inner strength enough to stand her ground and support Hero. As poor Ophelia, Ana Ika wanders, lost and confused, seeing with vacant eyes, speaking elusive thoughts.

Hannah Waterman is a firm and wary Paulina, seeing to their needs, keeping them safe, from their world “defined by men” until atonement seems probable.

Janine Waterman directs with a deft hand, mindful of Wright’s deep insights into the characters and careful reawakening of their plight. She moves them sparingly at times, in almost frenetic fear at others, always ensuring their clear, emotive articulation of Wright’s inspired dialogue that conjures different times and rhythms and modulations.

The production was a week old before I was able to see it, yet it has lost none of the power or passion that was described across the arts media. It still has a week to run. It’s an important new play by a brave, intelligent, new Australian female playwright and arts producer. Her play will be seen and written about again and again – but perhaps not so meaningfully as this production in its first home at the Old Fitz.

First published in Stage Whispers magazine