Joe Carstairs

June 12, 2024

4th – 22nd June 2024

If you don’t yet know who Joe Carstairs was, this play is a fine introduction to a character who lived life unashamedly their own way, defying the gender norms and oppressive forces of the twentieth century and, for the most part, having a damn good time too. Carstairs was blessed with wealth, charm and a seemingly unshakeable self-confidence.

But Franko Figueiredo and Krysia Mansfield’s play, directed here by Selwin Hulme-Teague and Robyn Lexi, is not just a piece of biographical theatre. In a duel narrative, Carstairs’ story is interwoven with that of the fictional Hik, a queer Gen-Z playwright who is researching Carstairs and writing a play about her life.

While finding much to admire about their subject, Hik finds themselves at odds with much of Carstairs’ story too. The two are separated not just by a century, but by economics and, to at least some degree, by their ethics and outlook on life too.

“It is beautifully acted, not least by Rhiannon Bell, whose performance as Carstairs is as bright and blistering as Carstairs’ life.”

Born as Marion Barbara Carstairs in Mayfair in 1900, Joe Carstairs was destined for a life of privilege, yet had a rocky relationship with her parents from the start. Her mother, who struggled both with drug and alcohol addiction as well as Carstairs’ rebellious nature, sent Joe to boarding school in the US at age 11.

Who Carstairs’ biological father was is a contested issue. Her mother had various lovers, some of whom Carstairs got on with, some of whom she didn’t. One of these men, Count Roger de Périgny, introduced Carstairs to car racing, which seeded her life-long obsession with motor vehicles and speed. She drove ambulances in France for the America Red Cross during World War One, opened the female-staffed car-hire and chauffeuring service X-Garage in South Kensington in 1920, and became a trophied powerboat racer later that decade. She was famously known as the ‘fastest woman on water’.

The glamour did not end there. Carstairs’ lovers included the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Tallulah Bankhead and Greta Garbo, while the play focusses primarily on her relationships with Dolly Wilde (Oscar Wilde’s niece) and the socialite Ruth Baldwin. In 1934, she bought Whale Cay, an island in the Bahamas, where she lived as colonial overlord, in control of all of the island’s affairs (including, to Hik’s consternation, its inhabitants). She sold up in 1975 and moved to Florida. She died in 1993.

Hik’s story is very different. They come from humble beginnings and while Carstairs was uninterested in the politics of her sexuality and gender, these issues form the beating heart of everything Hik stands for. Hik forms a relationship with Tee, their creative writing tutor, who helps them with their play and gets them writing gigs which Hik accepts with discomfort, feeling they have perhaps only secured them through nepotism. At a family party, Tee’s mother ignorantly challenges Hik on queer readings of classical texts, causing further friction in their relationship with Tee. Hik has a more productive conversation on approaches to queerness with a peer in their writing group, which cuts to the heart of the play’s concerns…

What does it mean to be queer? What does it mean to be queer in the early twenty-first century as opposed to the early twentieth century? How can we navigate queer lineage? How do we deal with the more troubling aspects of our icons? How, ultimately, should queer people love and support each other? The play, correctly, invites us to inhabit these questions with compassion and without the need for definitive answers. It is beautifully acted, not least by Rhiannon Bell, whose performance as Carstairs is as bright and blistering as Carstairs’ life. It adroitly shifts between characters and centuries incorporating song, humour and mime to tell its story. More people should see it.