THEATRE
Showing @ Gilded Balloon, until 29 August @ 10:45pm
Women’s Liberation has brought about a lot of great things over the years: the vote, equal opportunities in the workplace, and sexual freedom to name but a few. In an exposé of real accounts given by women across the country, three comediennes – Karen Dunbar, Wendy Wason and Rachel Parris – have united to embrace these freedoms and explore what sex means to today’s modern women.
If it sounds a bit like the Vagina Monologues, it’s probably because it is; or at least it’s trying to be, but falls disappointingly short of the mark. Written and compiled by Tim Fountain and Suzanne Portnoy, neither the idea, nor the format, nor the staging, feels in any way original. Whatever your opinion of the Vagina Monologues, under the superficial gauze of sex it at least has something to say about the joys and pains of relationships, feminism and even abuse. Sadly, Looser Women has no such message, and makes no attempt at liberating or empowering women. All of the extracts are exclusively about sex, and the one “thought-provoking” inclusion about a woman who leaves her husband is very timid and, like the other extracts, is totally lacking anything remotely profound – and is barely worth hearing. Even within the confines of the topic there is no real insight into anyone in a long-term relationship, focussing instead on casual at-it-like-rabbits sex.
The performances leave a lot to be desired, with the only energy coming from Dunbar while Parris is like a deer in headlights. It’s frustrating that all three of them rely so heavily on reading from a script, which only goes to add to the sense that the whole production has been very lazily put together. Given that there is no gradual eking out of information and little audience interaction, their expectations and then feigned disappointment at the audience’s reluctance to open up about their most intimate and possibly depraved bedroom activities is absurd. If you desperately want to hear women talk about their insignificant sex lives, go and eavesdrop a girls’ night out at your local pub – it’ll probably be more genuine if not more revealing than Looser Women.
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