Hey Girl!

______________________________________________________

JOYCE MCMILLAN on HEY GIRL! (Societas Raffaello Sanzio @ Tramway, Glasgow) for The Scotsman 4.3.08
______________________________________________________

4 stars ****

IF THERE IS ONE THING that the hugely challenging Italian director Romeo Castellucci does not care to do, it is to give his audiences any comfort.  Jarring sound and deeply disturbing imagery, often involving damaged performers, have been hallmarks of his “dis-human” theatre for the past decade; and at the weekend, Glasgow’s New Territories season played host to the first-ever Scottish visit fromCastellucci’s remarkable company, Societas Raffaello Sanzio.

Performed by two beautiful female dancers and a team of male “extras”, the company’s latest show, Hey Girl!, involves a 75-minute series of powerful and terrifying images designed to evoke the fierce continuing struggle for freedom and self-definition that lies beneath the surface of young women’s lives, even today.  A girl wakes and slowly prepares for the day, peering into a dark glass, then dreaming of mighty queens of history, as a great burning sword smoulders her lipstick and perfume to smoke, and male political voices roar overhead.

Then, as the pace quickens, there’s an attack by shadowy male figures, a huge puppet-head of suffering gradually discarded, and a final encounter with a black woman whom she paints in the silver of a woman warrior, as the show drives towards a thrilling concusion.  The sound throughout is pulsating, searing, frightening, Silvia Costa’s performance as the girl rivetting in its simplicity and determination.  And the final effect is beautiful, hideous, unforgettable; but also simply and startlingly feminist, with a closing moment of  subtle male self-mockery, questioning the whole effort to understand.

ENDS ENDS