Everybody lies. We all know that. Exploring what happens when those lies catch up with us forms the basis for Underfoot Theatre Company’s powerfully dramatic, sometimes disturbing and occasionally amusing play.
The scene with Alice at a party full of six year olds makes for some uncomfortable and disturbing viewing.
We are introduced at first to the maniacally ambitious Lindsay who gets fired from her position of power because of a variety of reasons - one of which is that she dared to turn the tables on the men in her office by using inappropriate language. Orla Sanders gives a faultless performance and provides the audience with some much needed light relief from the desperate dramas presented on stage.
Lindsay’s frenzied morning routine, cleverly written and marvelously delivered, shines a light on the list of achievements a successful woman needs to tick off on a daily basis.
Later we find that Lindsey has slept with her equivalent in the office who usurps her position and does the dirty on her. It’s a shame that the writers orchestrated this aspiring woman’s storyline to include sleeping with a man on the way to becoming successful. The character might have been less desperate and more powerful if she had achieved her position through hard work alone, and then her own accountabilities and not those of a man would have been the focus of her downfall.
This is the recurring theme throughout the play. The lies women are told by men, the lies women tell themselves because of men, and the lies they tell each other because of, well, you get the picture.
Next we meet Alice, who spends a long time streaked with mascara tears because her dastardly lover has left her after five years, cowardly breaking up with her via answerphone message. But after a couple of hysterical soliloquies from Magdalena McNab you understand why. I’m sure there are many who completely empathize and sympathize with Alice, although I’m hoping there are many more who are relieved she finally pulls herself together before going on a spurned woman rampage and boiling
Harry and his new girlfriend’s bunny. The scene with Alice at a party full of six year olds makes for some uncomfortable and disturbing viewing.
Joanne Fitzgerald’s understated performance as the lying lesbian Laura is in direct contrast to the shrieking, agitated presentation of Kim/Carole by Aleks Grela and their scenes together, and the final outcome, are intentionally confusing.
This devised piece by four talented women, and directed by Florence Bell, could have been vastly improved if the subject matter didn’t revolve around the inadequacies and failings of the opposite sex - and if you let a man order steak in a restaurant for you for five years, despite hating it, you have to come to the conclusion that you probably deserved it for not speaking up. Women have a voice and Underfoot Theatre Company aims to challenge an audience’s views on women in society, it is a shame that voice is used on this occasion to denounce all the men these women have come into contact with.
No wonder they think we’re all potential bunny boilers.
