Lizzy Watts and André Squire in (the) Woman. Photo by Charlie FlintDirected by Angharad Jones, Jane Upton’s (the) Woman is part of the New Perspectives initiative and attempts to immortalise the feelings many women carry in their bodies but feel they don’t have the words (or right) to express openly — usually for fear of a lack of understanding or judgemental reactions from both men and other women.
When a piece about a woman, written by a woman, largely for women, occasionally veers into cliché, the question is, what should the writer do? Upton decides to double down. It’s a brave decision, which doesn’t always pay off, but the sheer urgency and need to be heard, understood, valued and permitted to be something more than a baby factory, milk machine, sex facilitator (or one of any number of other pigeon-holes assigned to women in the patriarchy) is palpable. Here, the understandable desire for agency over one’s own life and aspirations results in some genuinely compelling and often very humorous moments. There’s shocking use of the ‘C’ word, unfiltered descriptions of body parts (post-birth) and a plethora of instances where sexual urges and misogyny butt-up against one another.
Lizzy Watts plays M, the woman in question. She remains on stage throughout, interacting with three fellow cast members who play the various characters in her orbit. Among other parts, Jamie-Rose Monk plays her mum, a midwife, a health visitor and her literary agent who cautions her against producing a messy autobiographical splurge. Josh Goulding and André Squire assume the guise of various men - a rakish former lover now reduced to selling towels, M’s husband, a doctor and a nauseating pair of execs who encourage her to ditch the idea of a play about what it realistically means to be a woman with a child — unless of course, for the purposes of improving the play’s chances of commercial success, she can find a way to turn her offspring into some sort of savant with sixth sense, or a red-eyed devil child which would undoubtedly ensure more bums on seats.
As a man, watching and listening to the stereotypical male characters’ dialogue was often cringeworthy and embarrassing. I consider myself (to use the popular parlance) an ally, but many of the phrases used and ill-considered opinions offered, reflected the continuing obstacles which women face in society, particularly once motherhood becomes an irresistible urge driven by hormones.
Sarah Perks has delivered a simple set design dominated by butchers curtain screening through which actors arrive and depart, and onto which Matt Powell’s engaging wordplay projections are realised.
(the) Woman continues its run at Park Theatre until 25th Oct and has a running time of 90 mins without an interval.
