Over the weekend the curtain came down on my play Re:Tale at Hen & Chickens in Islington. It was an exciting 1-week run that saw my nerves fray and pride swell, as talented cast and crew brought my work from page to stage. If you weren't able to see it, here's one of the character's mini rants, performed by the exceptional actress Zena Carswell. A rather 'Huntress London' sentiment, I think you'll find.
(customer exits)
SHOPGIRL: She left her paper. (a glossy fashion magazine
is curled inside the newspaper) Oooo, and this. This. She
had one of these. Bright, beguiling but evil. The devil in a red
dress, Satan in satin, Lucifer in leggings, well for one more season
maybe. Leggings.
(opens the magazine)
Shame.
Shaming us into wanting pricey frocks imagined by over-cool
under-coiffed, occasionally anti-Semitic, wide boys who are having a laugh
while disguising themselves as everymen women lovers.
Consider this darling demon! He’s
over-thinking a perfectly acceptable mackintosh, in an attempt to justify making
it ludicrously expensive. He claims “the trench coat is the most
democratic piece of clothing. A farmer in Yorkshire, the Queen of England
and Sid Vicious would wear it.” So then modern democracy is white, Anglo
Saxon and sporting a bad haircut? Maybe he’s got a point. But
fashion? Democratic? Democracy’s not even democratic lately, so how are
frocks and baubles going to be? And why should they? Fashion is
fluff, not politics, and no matter how hard it wishes it were significant and
serious, it’s not.
Most women know it
actually.
We don’t take this personally. Maybe we do. (starts
tearing pages from the magazine) It’s a trivial, convivial con that makes
us chuckle. It takes the edge off, really. Flipping through these
glossy, saucy, worthless, clueless, pretty
pages.
Surely we know this is rubbish. We do! But still. It’s this that allows us to think that she (points to a
woman in the audience) is something less than thee.
Thank you to everyone who made Re:Tale happen.
It was dramatic, joyful and stylish. Thank you so much.
photos of Zena Carswell by Alex Grey
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