Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until Fri 21 Mar @ 19:30 (touring)
Stories of women behind bars have fascinated audiences for years – from old movies like Caged Heat to TV’s notoriously campy Prisoner Cell Block H. Stellar Quines Theatre Company and Fife Cultural Trust‘s Dare to Care is written by Christine Lindsay, who became a prison officer back in 1976. She provides a grim reminder of the inhumanity of a system where inmates are incarcerated to fester with their own unhelpful thoughts.
The opening features an impressive soundscape reflecting the harsh otherworldliness of life “inside”. Wry observations show the women – prostitutes, fire starters, baby killers, thieves, loan sharks – full of bravado, belligerence and banter. One, gasping for a drink, describes her mouth as being ‘as dry as Gandhi’s flip-flops’. The knowing self-awareness and humour are only skin deep, inside the inmates are terrified.
There’s talk – based on real-life interviews – of the cell’s stench, the self-harming, the bitch fights, the Queen Bees who chorus ‘we’re Teflon’. There are glimpses of lives wrecked by the abuse of pimps, fathers and boyfriends. So far, so gory. These intense (though familiar) tales of alienation are alleviated with comic touches that include open-mic confessionals, rap harmonies and Gilbert and Sullivan-style sing-a-longs. There are interspersed with flashbacks to the force-fed Scottish suffragists in 1909 and the infamous 19th-century Scottish poisoner Madeline Smith.
An outstanding ensemble cast really gets to grips with the material and it would be invidious to single anyone out, though Molly Innes and Rebecca Elise shine. With cast members playing several roles and a set design by artist Keith McIntyre that includes flat screens, a cage on wheels and cardboard cut outs, director Muriel Romanes marshals these forces with precision and care. Yet, for a claustrophobic hour-long show, there’s too much packed in with much of it at breakneck speed. This might belie the production’s workshop antecedents. No one, Dare to Care seems to say, ever wins in a prison system where not much has changed in over 100 years and that will always be flawed; where everyone is a victim, including the screws.