Gratuitous force feeding and tender lesbian sex make for an
unwieldy pairing, but not necessarily an unsavory one. This revival
of Rebecca Lenkiewicz's play, Her Naked Skin, by Tower Theatre
Company pays homage to the suffragette movement of the early 20th
century.
Set in 1913, just after Emily Davison famously stepped out in
front of the King's horse at the Epsom Derby, Her Naked Skin tells
of the struggle so nobly undertaken by many woman of the era, and
their tortuous experiences in prison. But whilst the play's point
of departure is the political context, it gradually homes in to
focus on the intimate personal life of a single suffragette
- Celia Cain - and those around her.
The affluent Celia, whose marriage to the pro-suffragette lawyer
William Cain is a loveless one, is a lady whose luxuries allow her
to flit between protest and prison in an almost free-spirited
manner. When she falls in love with a young factory worker and
comrade in arms Eve Douglas, and the plight of suffragettes becomes
more perilous, she is forced (largely by her cuckolded but kindly
husband) to reconsider her priorities.
Despite the play's moving love story - and indeed its
suffragette backdrop - it seems that class politics are at its real
core: Celia's conundrum is not who she should be in a relationship
with, but rather what her socio-economic position enables her to
do. Is her struggle easier given her husband's wealth, or does that
wealth simply act as the bars of an alternative prison? In a coy
wink to Henrik Ibsen's arguably feminist play A Doll's House (which
ends with the female protagonist leaving her husband's house,
slamming the door behind her), Her Naked Skin's conclusion sees
William Cain leaving the house, slamming the door behind him and
leaving a tearful Celia alone in her prison - or "doll's
house".
But Lenkiewicz's play does more than simply celebrate the
feminist politics of the time - it displays a lesbian relationship
which perhaps even transcends the freedoms that feminists of the
day were so arduously fighting for. Celia and Eve's efforts to hide
their relationship from the other suffragettes reveals that a
homosexual relationship is one right too far.
The amateur theatre company performed with zeal and
professionalism, despite the technical limitations: the set, made
up of various cylinders - representing bars - was imaginative and
versatile, but not entirely complimentary to the production, while
the poor lighting often obscured subtler facial expressions. Fake
punching and slapping were a touch farcical, while the
force-feeding scene was not as plausible or effective as it should
have been.
The performances were powerful on the whole, with a
particularly outstanding display from Shiela Burbidge as Florence
Boorman, the aged and martyr-like suffragette. The clincher for me,
however, was Simone Huges who played Celia. She had me utterly rapt
with her graceful commanding movement across the stage, subtle
cadences of emotion, perfectly pitched humour and coy sarcasm. Her
relationship with her husband, played by the endearing Colin
Guthrie, was tender and utterly credible, but sadly, her sapphic
suffragette lover Zoe, played by Carla Evans had a grand total of
two expressions - confused and grumpy - which severely dampened the
chemistry between the two.
Although not without its flaws - the play is a tedious two and a
half hours long, and hankers after one theme too many - it is
refreshing to see an overtly feminist play on stage.
The suffragist movement and the heinous way in which British
politicians dealt with it seems to have been banished to a
half-hour history lesson in Year 8. But the most poignant fact
about the play is perhaps its contemporary relevance; Rebecca
Lenkiewicz's play in 2008 was the first full-length work by a woman
to be performed on the Olivier main stage of the National Theatre
- a shocking fact considering the theatre opened in 1976.
Male privilege is still widespread and endemic; not only is
this play an arresting "lest we forget", but also a warning that we
are still far from what we started nearly a whole century ago.
Her Naked Skin
is on at the Bridewell Theatre until Saturday 10th December
2011.
