The ominous feeling begins upon walking into the darkened theater, where three rusty claw-foot bathtubs are sitting on the stage. And it only gets spookier at the beginning of “The Drowning Girls,” when three women clad in vintage undergarments suddenly erupt gasping from the water — and begin telling their stories.
This award-winning Canadian play — written by Beth Graham, Daniela Vlaskalic and Charlie Tomlinson — is based on the true-life story of “The Brides of the Bathtub,” three British women who were murdered by their husband, George Joseph Smith, more than a hundred years ago.
Bessie (Kate Danson, actor Ted Danson’s daughter), Alice (Marissa Porto) and Margaret (Nancy Rodriguez) were each briefly married to the cunning killer, who was eventually hanged for his crimes. Delivering their accounts in alternately moving and humorous fashion, they describe how they were seduced by his charms, only to be drowned in their own bathtubs a short time after their weddings.
“He’s a man of independent means,” Margaret rhapsodizes after meeting her dashing suitor, adding, “I felt understood.”
Each woman re-enacts her marriage proposal, and what it meant to her.
“Freedom,” says one.
“Love,” says another.
“Last chance,” observes the third.
But things don’t proceed happily, as when Bessie’s new husband accuses of her giving him “the bad disorder,” (i.e., syphilis) prompting him to take an extended trip to London, supposedly for treatment. Each of them is encouraged to become estranged from her family and pressured to buy life insurance, with her new husband as the beneficiary.
“Isn’t that what a married couple does?” asks Mar-garet.
The actresses also play other characters figuring in the tale, including disapproving family members, insurance agents, police inspectors and, most chillingly, the murderer himself.
They periodically re-enter the tubs, with water streaming down on them from shower-heads above.
At one point, they break into a spirited rendition of “Nearer My God to Thee,” the 19th-century hymn that is the evening’s musical motif.
Beautifully staged by Jessica Bashline and performed by its trio of talented young actresses, “The Drowning Girls” hauntingly gives voices to these tragic victims while providing sharp insights about the Edwardian-era society that repressed them.