“Hammerton and Champain have fantastic chemistry; their sisterly dynamic highly believable as it fluctuates between highly loving and purposefully antagonistic”
Flushed, the multi award-winning play directed by Catherine Cranfield, is the latest in a line of much needed productions exploring women’s health. We meet two sisters, Jen (Iona Champain) and Marnie (Elizabeth Hammerton), who are best friends. They go on double dates together; they go clubbing together; and they wait nervously on the results of pregnancy tests together. However, when twenty-five-year-old Marnie’s period is late and she is diagnosed with Primary Ovarian Insufficiency (a sort of early menopause), the siblings’ relationship is tested as the younger Jen struggles to comfort Marnie appropriately.
A story told against the backdrop of seven different bathrooms from nightclub to flat, Flushed explores the impacts of the rare medical condition and the desire to fulfil one’s ‘womanly’ purpose of having biological children.
Hammerton and Champain have fantastic chemistry; their sisterly dynamic highly believable as it fluctuates between highly loving and purposefully antagonistic. The pair are also dressed in colour matched outfits – pink and black – which connects them visually. Hammerton delivers a particularly powerful monologue about wanting to be pregnant (with a humorous interjection about revelling in the opportunity to pretend she is fat rather than expecting to overfamiliar strangers) and holding her tiny new-born for the first time between her palm and the inside of her elbow. Champain brings a wonderful humour to the play that helps to lighten an otherwise upsetting subject matter.
The set is simple, and it need not be any more complex. The duo makes good use of the sparse space – two toilets about two metres apart and a neon pink sign saying ‘toilets’ on the back wall – with some mimetic techniques such as acting opening the cubicle door upon entrance and exit. Many women would agree that the bathroom space is often identified as a refuge for female heart-to-hearts so this setting – though slightly comical – is completely understandable.
The lighting (Anthony Englezou) moves between pink and black and fades to darkness between each scene. The sound (Oscar Maguire) is well done especially when the sisters are in a club where we hear pounding but muffled music as if there really is a raging party going on next door.
Flushed explores an impressive amount in its sixty-minute run time. Having not heard of POI before last night, I am so pleased that theatre such as this exists to educate both men and women on little known but devastating health conditions. It is also a joy to see such tender sisterhood presented on stage. Cranfield’s production is an absolute pleasure and will no doubt leave most spectators both highly emotional and better educated.
“an astonishing ensemble of six actors, whose craftsmanship and energy matches the electricity of Churchill’s words”
It’s fifty years since Caryl Churchill’s short play “Abortive” was broadcast on BBC Radio 3, but it still retains its sense of urgency and resonance today, complete with Churchill’s trademark gift for turning a pre-conceived and fashionable idea on its head. It is one of four of her earlier plays being revived to mark the re-opening of Greenwich Theatre, collectively titled “Bad Days and Odd Nights. James Haddrell’s production is unveiled without fanfare, but once word gets out it will certainly kick up a storm.
Churchill has always been a thrilling and challenging writer. Her dialogue and characterisation are so rich and layered that it often justifies repeat viewing. Haddrell is well aware of the need to do justice to the writing and has assembled an astonishing ensemble of six actors, whose craftsmanship and energy matches the electricity of Churchill’s words. Initially daunted by a running time of two and a half hours, you come away from this show still wanting more.
The evening is varied and dynamic, while still retaining the sense of a common theme running through the different set pieces. “Seagulls” is up first, and probably the most personal and reflective of the short plays. Kerrie Taylor is Valerie, an ordinary housewife who has the gift of moving objects by sheer willpower. Propelled into a showbiz career by her caring yet hard-headed manager (Gracy Goldman) she is beset with self-doubt; exacerbated by a meeting with a long-time supposed fan of hers (Bonnie Baddoo). The three women brilliantly expose the contradictory layers of these characters: Taylor’s mix of vulnerability and insufferability, with Goldman and Baddoo both hinting at a slight menace behind the devotion.
“Three More Sleepless Nights” introduces us to Churchill’s raw, invective, rhythmic and overlapping dialogue as we witness Frank (Paul McGann) and Margaret (Goldman – unrecognisable from the last scenario). The verbal warfare escalates but stops short of becoming physical, yet the bruises are just as visible. The reality of McGann’s performance is such that you feel you want to intervene, but Goldman’s Margaret gives as good as she gets. It cuts to a second sleepless night. A silent night. All calm, but far from bright. Pete (Dan Gaisford) and Dawn (Verna Vyas) are busy not communicating. Gaisford and Vyas manage to convey that this soporific detachment is just as dangerous as the previous scene’s underlying threat of violence. Finally, the third night we see Pete and Margaret together. A much better match. Happiness ever after. Yeah, right…!
“Abortive” is perhaps the most enigmatic piece of the evening, with a greater complexity of emotions running through it. Colin and Roz (McGann and Taylor) are a well-heeled couple. Aware of their privilege, Colin had previously taken in and cared for Billy – an unseen refugee – in an act of charity. Billy repaid their hospitality by raping Roz. McGann and Taylor are totally convincing as they unpeel their doubts and fears, dealing with the aftermath of the subsequent abortion. Slightly unnerving is Colin’s covert inference that he is not altogether convinced his wife was raped. An anachronism that might jar more nowadays than in the seventies, but symbolic of the honesty of Churchill’s writing and McGann’s authentic performance. These thoughts exist – right or wrong. But then Churchill hits us with a gorgeous counterpoint when Roz quips “… abortion is overrated. Men make it such a melodramatic topic!”
“Not Not Not Not Not Enough Oxygen”, is set in 2010, an imagined and dystopian, futuristic London; from the perspective of when it was written. People live in one-room cellblocks, the air is thick with smoke and the streets littered with danger, and with a feral population of ‘fanatics’ who are out to kill either themselves or others. Mick (Dan Gaisford) lives alone with his memories of a time when birdsong could be heard outside his window and is waiting for the return of his daughter (Bonnie Baddoo), a rich celebrity whom Mick hopes will fund his escape to a cottage in the country. Meanwhile Vivian (Verna Vyas), a desperate neighbour who looks up to Mick, wants in on the action. This short play runs the danger of drifting from both the general theme of the whole evening, but also from reality itself. Yet the performances and conviction of the cast anchor the piece in credibility. Verna Vyas, in particular, is phenomenal as the electro-charged, babbling, Vivian.
This company have taken on, and given us (the audience), a challenge. But if they can pull it off with such success, so can we. For too long we have been starved of the oxygen of theatre (yes – not not not not not enough of it). “Bad Days and Odd Nights” is a much-needed lifeline and, not just a glimpse of how it used to be, but a spotlight on the return to normality – to what live theatre is all about.
