Mod Girl tells the story of a young prostitute’s evening with an older and, as it turns out, psychopathic man. This university production from Bath is thus fairly ambitious and one can only applaud the production team for this. No running round the mile as fairies in poorly applied make-up for this cast; they’ve aimed to do something different.
Unfortunately, the quality of the piece in no way measures up to its ambition. The script is irritatingly worthy, intent on fitting in as many soulful monologues (‘I started on the streets at thirteen, Mother was dead and Dad was in prison...’) as possible, and annoys rather than enraptures. Another eye-rollingly trite moment is the discussion about the mural of the Virgin Mary on the first wall the young prostitute had ever worked. Often it felt as if one was not listening to a real conversation but a collection of symbols linked by dialogue.
The actors themselves are not too bad; in a university setting I imagine they are actually seen as quite accomplished, but they are both utterly out of their depth here. Both are let down by poor direction. Unfortunately the ‘handsome young widower’ only looks around twenty, and no amount of chin-stroking (which makes you look like you are pretending to be old rather than actually looking old) could compensate for this. The actress is slightly more successful and does manage to give her character a tinge of innocence lost.
Mod Girl is not a successful play. Although it was pleasing to see a university group attempt something different (and this is certainly different) they simply do not have the talent to pull it off. To paraphrase Clement Attlee, this group are simply ‘not up to it.’
