Fight Flight Freeze Fuck
Katzpace Studio Theatre
Reviewed – 12 May 2019
★★★
“for a work in progress performance, it fairs rather well”
There’s a new queer and feminist theatre festival in town. Erase Erase Erupt, is a platform for artists to test out new work focusing on queerness, sexual assault, gender identity and more. The brainchild of Pink Freud Theatre Company, it is a free-spirited affair that’s inclusive to all. As well as being producers, Pink Freud also have their own work in progress show as part of the line up, ‘Fight Flight Freeze Fuck’.
Nine coloured envelopes hang on a washing line, each containing the personal account of an incident of sexual assault, rape, besmirched consent that has happened in the past to the actors Riz Davis and Amelia Brown. One by one each story is randomly chosen to be read with no details left out. As much as the piece highlights troubling behaviour and horrific codes of conduct, it also focuses on kindness, support, and the strength that comes from listening to one another.
Relaxed and inviting, this is a safe space for explicit and uncomfortable details to be voiced. Trigger warnings are mentioned before each story is read, and an open house policy for anyone who wants to leave if they feel the tale will bring up any past memories is also in place. Steps are constantly taken to assure nobody is affected or offended. This is less like traditional performance and instead, is an amalgamation of different art styles. Audience participation is done in a gentle form (handing bags filled with props to the actors) which never feels uncomfortable or evasive for those audience members who are terrified of being involved.
Inviting a male actor to read the stories, which have consciously been written from the perspective of the perpetrator, is a refreshing and far more impactful choice. With the two women not voicing their own stories directly, it actually magnifies the disgusting nature of the assaults. Particularly the blasé attitudes of the men who believe themselves innocent in all of the incidents. It also allows some distance for the actors from their incredibly personal material.
Davis and Brown find some original ways of interpreting the stories through performance art-like actions, which, done successfully, captures these two women’s inner feelings within each story. Sometimes this doesn’t always happen and the abstract moves lose their significance.
Some of the stories edge on being too similar, which makes you question whether it was really adding anything to the piece. Yes, these are all truthful, personal accounts experienced by the actors, but at the end of the day, this is a performance and not therapy. Perhaps a wider net of stories from a wider range of women would be the next step for progressing this show.
All in all, for a work in progress performance, it fairs rather well. Pink Freud certainly have some imaginative and engaging ways of making difficult and hard to swallow subject matters actually entertaining. It will be compelling to see what journey the show goes on from here on in.
Reviewed by Phoebe Cole
Fight Flight Freeze Fuck
Katzpace Studio Theatre
Previously reviewed at this venue:
Gaps | ★★★ | April 2018
What the… Feminist?! | ★★★★ | April 2018
Obsession | ★★★ | June 2018
Let’s Get Lost | ★★★ | July 2018
Serve Cold | ★★ | August 2018
Much Ado About Nothing | ★★★★ | October 2018
Motherhood or Madness | ★★★ | November 2018
Specky Ginger C*nt | ★★½ | November 2018
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