Some people simply don’t have a filter, managing to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Our protagonist is one such person.
Leyla Aycan's performance marks her as a star of the future
Gobstopper unfolds the story of a young woman in a small Scottish town. For the benefit of international readers, gobstoppers are large, round, boiled sweets, best consumed slowly to avoid breaking your teeth. (The word “gob” is British slang for “mouth.”) Given their size and nature, gobstoppers take a long time to consume, inadvertently silencing conversation. Perhaps this is why the woman eats them.
An elderly man sits near her on a bus, making some noise. It’s only after she verbally abuses him that she realises, to her horror, that he’s choking—on a gobstopper, in fact. He manages to eject the sweet, which symbolically lands at her feet. Her blossoming pariah status suffers yet another blow. She becomes aware of a boy staring at her on the bus, but this isn’t a precursor to flirtation; he’s a child. She gesticulates toward him, only for the child’s mother to notice. It’s then that she realises the boy is blind. Before she can apologise, she is assaulted.
In such a small town, everybody knows everyone’s business, and her blunders soon become public knowledge. While intelligent and self-aware, the woman doesn’t seem to fit in. She has a reputation for social missteps, whether deserved or not, and today’s incidents only tarnish her standing further.
However, she faces an even bigger issue: she’s had casual sex with an older, married man and fears there will be repercussions. She’s conflicted, concerned, and hurt. It seems likely that she was unable to consent, adding a disturbing layer to her situation.
But why is she like this? The cold-hearted, dismissive attitude of her mother, combined with the absence of a father figure, is a good starting point. We can only imagine her formative years. She has little support structure, evidenced by the fact that it’s been weeks since she last saw her best—and only—friend. A random hook-up in a bar suddenly doesn’t seem so unlikely.
Every aspect of this production, presented at Prague Fringe, is outstanding: the writing and, especially, the performance by Leyla Aycan, who marks herself as a star of the future. Sophie Michelle’s direction is deft, giving the performer space to ebb and flow—no small feat in the intimate Café Míšenská. The only criticism is a back-handed one: while many pieces of Fringe theatre could benefit from an edit or two, Gobstopper feels like it’s missing a denouement, and we were left yearning for more. Will she stand her ground in this small town, pushing back against her reputation? Or instead, will she sail away, as suggested by Enya on her playlist, looking for a fresh start?
The woman is impulsive and makes poor choices, but that makes her human—not a monster. She is undeniably a victim of societal and institutional misogyny, another example of a woman being defined by a label. The quality of this SKELF Theatre Co. production is simply exceptional.
