Playfight
Roundhouse
Multi Fringe First-winning team Julia Grogan (late year at Edinburgh Fringe “Gunter” made a strong impression), Theatre Uncut and Grace Dickson Productions present coming-of-age play “Playfight” making its debut at the fringe. And Grogan’s debut as a solo playwright. It explores adolescent desire in a landscape of rising sexual violence. It charts the progress of three teenage girls from the age of 15 to 24 as they work out their futures in a small town where there’s not much to do and life seems to be happening somewhere else. Sounds like familiar coming-of-age territory.
It is played in the round under an ancient tree represented here by a pink ladder atop a pile of woodchips from which various small props are pulled. I think the metaphor here is aspiration – to climb out of their situations as their roots grow deeper or as they become more stuck. The play begins with a dead squirrel falling from the tree – an omen of some kind or an object of curiosity? Sex and death are linked in “Playfight”
There’s Keira – who has had sex for the first time with an older boy and it’s all captured on her ‘phone and doing the rounds. I liked Keira – she is bolshie, brash and you hope to God she will get out of this town but fear of course that she won’t. None of the characters fear talking about sex and playwright Grogan gets into some nitty grittys to the delight of the target audience. Zainab is the brainy academic girl and Lucy is a Christian. But these are not easy stereotypes. The status keeps shifting across the drama as secrets, desires and failures are revealed. Zainab’s journey is one of vulnerability and sadness while Lucy sheds her naivety for something much darker and she eventually become the centre of the play. The script crackles with authentic dialogue and I imagine lots of young actors relishing this piece.
Zainab is wrestling with her sexuality and Keira finds herself falling into a form of online prostitution. Lucy finds herself trapped in an increasingly abusive relationship and the circumstances of this gradually emerge. Tragedy inevitably strikes and we are left to consider the iniquities of a system which will seemingly tolerate the so-called “rough sex defence” plea. There is quite a bit that happens over the hour of this play.
Terrific performances keep audiences enthralled and “Playfight” is worth seeing for the performances alone. More critical playgoers may feel that the ultimate death and violence that led to it is all rather opaque. As a first full length play it’s a cracker.
Kate Gaul
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