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Flushed, Bike Shed Theatre. |
Flushed, Bike Shed Theatre
By Josh Adamson
Four women in a bathtub reflecting on their lives – one doesn’t really know what to expect after reading a blurb like that – but that’s what it was. Or at least that’s what you saw when you entered the theatre. Four women all crammed into a tub.
At one point I did think that a toilet might be more befitting of the play’s title, but I suppose it would have been difficult to find one big enough to seat four women. At any rate, they did not look very comfortable.
Once the show began, the play time of 45 minutes seemed all too short. The four characters represented what I thought was a fairly accurate range of the things women think about: sexual orientation, the relationship we have with our bodies, the struggle between vulnerability and self-fulfillment, and the balance between travel and stability.
The alternating sequences touched upon both reality and vivid imagination, cleverly scripted together to provide a glimpse of ‘what women really think’.
The actors, although very focused and professional, were full of energy and high-spirited cheek, playing their respective parts very well, and on the whole, this was what made the performance such an enjoyable experience.
Audience participation was also one of the highlights of the show and was a pleasant surprise compared to other plays I’ve seen that seemed to be forcing in bits of clichéd participation with the idea of making a mediocre play somehow slightly more bearable.
