F**cked

THEATRE
F**ked
Assembly@George Street (Venue 3)
3 stars ***

IT HAS AN in-your-face title and a late-evening slot that invites rowdy responses; but all the same, there’s something sad,  gentle and thought-provoking about Penelope Skinner’s neat 55-minute monologue, presented at the Assembly Rooms by the ambitious Tangram Company, and beautifully performed by Becci Gemmell.  F is a woman of 25 whose life is heading towards rock-bottom; she works as a erotic dancer in a seedy club, she has sex with the wrong men, she drinks too much, earns too little, and is often abused, both physically and psychologically.

On one particularly hung-over morning, she stumbles across an old notebook full of dream and stories, written when she was 12; and Skinner’s poignant play leads us back in time, through the series of sexual and emotional disappointments and losses that seem to have broken F’s heart, and her spirit.  It’s not a wholly depressing play; there’s an energy in the writing, and in Becci Gemmell’s performance, that suggest F’s story is not finished yet.  But the play has plenty to say about the ways in which our supposedly liberated sexual culture can abuse and exploit young women; and leave them without the loving relationships they need, at a crucial moment of their lives.

Joyce McMillan
Until 31 August
p.197

ENDS ENDS

~ by joycemcmillan on August 29, 2009.