Plain Heroines’ Scratches turns a difficult topic into theatrical gold (curtain) on the VAULT Festival
“I said I was wearing the socks because if your feet are warm, you’re more likely to orgasm.
Which is true, by the way”
With a lilac swimsuit to die for and a gold foil fringe curtain that will look beautiful in my front room, Aoife Kennan’s Girl bounds onto the stage for Scratches with actual panache. She units about recounting the travails of sustaining intercourse life when residing in a field room however as she hesitates, as she skirts round sure particulars, we see that she’s easing us into one thing altogether extra critical.
So critical in actual fact that she will’t even title it, it’s simply ‘the thing’ and that factor is self-harm. It’s a intelligent and delicate strategy to a topic that requires such delicacy in its portrayal however it is usually clear-eyed and admirably frank within the particulars that it doesn’t spare us. Perhaps aware of this weightiness, author Kennan disrupts this confessional with the arrival of Best Friend (Zak Ghazi-Torbati) who bursts onto the stage with purple capes and glitter bombs.
At first, he’s simply an injection of queer fabulousness, attempting to perk up the temper. But in actuality he’s there as a real buddy, an embodiment of the help system that may be so invaluable in coping with all of the crap that life can throw at us. Scratches then dances round Girl’s story, slipping again in time to when she first began to “feel sad”, introducing the family members round her who variously co-sign, ignore and finally confront her points.
Kennan’s genial stage presence has one thing of Carey Mulligan’s gently disarming directness to it and he or she’s extremely partaking all through, guiding our hand softly however determinedly via this emotional minefield. And Ghazi-Torbati is splendidly charismatic however fantastically thought of as he recognises when to cede the limelight that Best Friend so craves. A daring and courageous piece of theatre.