JOAN // Milk Presents

In ‘Mind, Modernity and Madness’, Liah Greenfeld writes that “A widely held idea (say, that hell awaits those who eat flesh on Fridays, or that all men are created equal) is no less a reality for people in the community holding the idea than the Atlantic Ocean”. Her bracingly forthright sociological study goes on to dismiss those who “diagnose entire cultures as psychotic...retroactively pronounce medieval saints schizophrenics”.

It’s a helpful thought to bear in mind when hearing the story of Joan of Arc. It’s a historical fact that a teenage peasant girl with no military background presided over a period of astonishing success for the French army in the 13th century -- while claiming to be taking directions from God. Accounts of the time stress her femininity, purity and delicacy, as a holy maiden who was literally heaven sent.

Lucy J. Skilbeck’s play makes her something a little tougher. Where medieval commentators were keen to emphasise that she only dressed as a man to preserve her chastity and safety, drag king LoUis CYfer embraces the masculinity of a woman who charged into battle in a specially made suit of armour.

Skilbeck’s focus on gender identity shows the power of religious zeal to overcome other culturally ingrained ideas, like the need for women to be meek and submissive. Medieval saints could (often literally) float over gender norms by dint of divine intervention. But medieval ideas on gender were also surprisingly modern: themes of gender transformation fill romances, while scientists believed that physical exercise, sexual desire or even just excessive heat could transform women into men. Skilbeck’s approach makes Joan’s approach both natural and deliberate: a series of tiny decisions, as well as one broad ecstatic creation. CYfer is an acclaimed performer on the drag cabaret scene, and this experience shows in a brilliant observed set of comic songs and physical performances. CYfer parodies all kinds of men, from a gruff father to a camp priest, and borrows their mannerisms: their self-consciousness heightened by the mirrors that surround the stage.

Joan becomes the world’s first drag king, a joyful anachronism heightened by CYfer’s Tank Girl t-shirt and 21st century song choices. Skilbeck’s story sticks close to its medieval source too, though, spelling out the painful details of victory in battle, then backlash from the religious establishment. In medieval times, as now, the freedom to step outside prescribed female roles is dependent on cultural mood. And when the mass shared belief in Joan’s divinity fades, so does Joan’s ability to perform a gender that’s artificial and hugely natural, at once.

- AS

Joan was on at Underbelly at Edinburgh Fringe, 5-28th August https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/joan

‘Mind, Modernity and Madness’ by Liah Greenfeld https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Le4anj8kJPkC&dq=medieval+saints+psychosis

Ideas of gender transformation in medieval fiction http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1813&context=mff

IT FOLDS // Junk Ensemble & Brokentalkers

At first, It Folds feels baffling, a blur whose beauty defies close analysis. It blurs the boundaries between life and death, making the ghosts of murdered children walk among their grieving families. It blurs the lines between truth and fiction, drawing on real-life stories of child abduction but muddying their details until they become universal. And most of all, it blurs the categories we place performance into. Its large cast mix dance, physical theatre, matter-of-fact monologues and disconcerting wit into a piece that creates a incense-heady atmosphere of its own.

Irish dance theatre company Junk Ensemble have collaborated with theatre-makers Brokentalkers to create It Folds. It has four directors, a nine-strong cast, and a choir who hymn the story, both on and offstage. These huge massed ranks of voices, seen and unseen, create a kind of surging community around the stories it tells. It’s a sense of community that’s hugely fitting for the subject of child abductions, and the way that they stir up mass hysteria, mass searching, and mass grieving in turn.

Through the ’80s and '90s, it felt as though every summer was marked by the story of a child who’d disappeared, and a tabloid hysteria that simmered on for months or years until its grim conclusion. Why do they hold such fascination? Some writers have put forward the idea that moral panic over child abduction was a backlash against feminism: the moral right's attempt to refocus attention on the nuclear family, with the child at its heart. Before the Catholic church was implicated in child abuse itself, it was a source of stability that emphasised the mother's role in protecting children from the outside world.

The religious imagery of It Folds emphasises the contradictory role of Catholicism in both nurturing and threatening children: an Irish priest briefs altar boys without his shirt on, but it's only when he skips mass that he's abducted. The damage done to parents, under new pressure to protect their children, is explored too. There’s a kind of surreal riff on the way that grieving parents have to perform their relationship for hordes of prurient outsiders: a man and a woman play two halves of a pantomime horse, but they stretch and pull in opposite directions, dragging each other to the floor.

The silliness of a pantomime horse might seem to be at odds with the grim subject matter of child abduction. But the seriousness of the performance is complexified, rather than undermined, by irreverent moments: like a murder ballad strummed on a banjo, or a beautiful hymn sung by a chorus of sheet-wearing ghosts. And the afterlife it imagines might not be sanctioned by any church, but something about its unified beauty lifts us to the heavens, all the same.

- AS

It Folds was on at Summerhall, 5-28 August http://festival16.summerhall.co.uk/event/it-folds/

More information on Brokentalkers' work http://www.brokentalkers.ie/

More information on Junk Ensemble's work http://www.junkensemble.com/

How ideas of stranger danger have changed the way children play http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8399749.stm

The influence of christianity on child abuse hysteria  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/books/review-we-believe-the-children-on-child-abuse-hysteria-in-the-1980s.html

MAKING MONSTERS // The Golden Fire Theatre Company

The sexism that Mary Shelley experienced while trying to write literary classic Frankenstein is unfortunately still an immediate and modern concern as literary award shortlists continue to be male dominated. Making Monsters does its best to explore the feminist context surrounding the creation of this psychologically gripping, and essentially modern landmark text.

As the performance starts we are transported to Geneva, where sycophants gather around literary giant and romantic Victorian wide boy Lord Byron. Mary Shelly, Claire Clairmont and Percy Bysshe Shelley along with Byron himself convinced themselves to interrupt the boredom they will compete in a literary challenge: to conceive a horror story.

The male characters are larger than life as Mary and Claire are instantly sidelined; a reflection of the recent discussion surrounding male dominated contemporary literally criticism and awards. Dismissed and belittled by Byron, Mary is not to be banished and slowly she cultivates her ghastly narrative.

Mary’s mother was Mary Woolstonecraft, the writer of A Vindication on the Rights of Woman and references to her writing act as a stepping stone to connect the themes to contemporary feminist discourse. While assessing Claire's stitching, Mary mumbles about body parts and voltage, forehead creased, considering the fear of the promethean monstrosity her mind is creating - born of dangerous knowledge and symbolic of secretive scientific endeavor. Instead of the female anatomy being created from Adam's spare rib, it is Mary, a woman, creating this twisted masculine form. News of the first human head transplant being performed in Russia this year and the ethical minefield this kind of surgery inspires, suggest Mary Shelly might be the mother of modern medical ethics.

Mary Shelly’s writing was a primal manifestation of Fuck the Patriarchy. Manarchists and brocialists -  Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the sexist radicals of their day -  just couldn’t compete.

- Lucy Orr

Making Monsters ran at 17.05 at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/making-monsters

Sexism in publishing: 'My novel wasn’t the problem, it was me, Catherine': https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-nichols-female-author-male-pseudonym

The Deep Rooted Sexism In Literary Awards: https://thinkprogress.org/the-deep-rooted-sexism-in-literary-awards-9b4f49c7f9e3#.14cmjvy9p

Publishing and Prejudice: 5 Female Writers Weigh in on Sexism in the Literary World: http://brooklynbased.com/blog/2013/11/15/publishing-and-prejudice-5-female-writers-weigh-in-on-sexism-in-the-literary-world/

The Ethics of Organ Transplantation: A Brief History: http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2012/03/mhst1-1203.html

A year after face transplant, man says he is 'feeling great' – video: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/aug/24/face-transplant-patrick-hardison-video

TWO MAN SHOW // RashDash

There is a crisis in masculinity. Men can no longer be bearded, belching monsters, retreating to their man-caves at the merest whiff of emotion. Women are in charge now, and men now have to stop solving problems with their fists. They have talk to each other. They have to have feelings, damn it. This is the initial premise of Two Man Show – actually a three-woman piece. But, just as the title of the show misleads us as to the gender identities of the performers, the show itself tells us less about what it is to be a 21st century man, and more about what it is to be a woman.
 
Following a quick overview of how the patriarchy has ruined everything, we see women portrayed as goddesses, as muses, on pedestals, as voiceless figurines. We see women acting out the characters of two brothers, struggling to communicate about death and impending fatherhood, jaws and hearts hardened and set against each other.
 
Most of the show involves the two main performers and creators – Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland – either topless or completely naked. It seems potentially gratuitous, titillating or desensitising. Then as women playing men, standing about in their boxer shorts in the morning, it seems fine. After all, men are allowed to walk around in just their pants, aren’t they?
 
It’s not the only ‘un-ladylike’ behaviour the audience is asked to confront. Women swear. We fight. We fuck. We make our own rules. We rule our own lives now, thank you very much. But does this mean we’re no longer allowed to be feminine? To use our power softly rather than screaming and shouting? Two Man Show speaks to the very heart of identity yet acknowledges that sometimes there are no words to say how we really feel.

- Dr Kat Arney

Two Man Show ran at Summerhall until August 27th - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/two-man-show

RashDash: http://www.rashdash.co.uk/

Thoughts from RashDash about on-stage nudity and playing men: http://www.rashdash.co.uk/thoughts/two-man-show-week-four-diary/

Time – The Crisis in Masculinity: http://time.com/4339209/masculinity-crisis/

Ms Magazine – Empowering Femininity: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2014/07/28/empowering-femininity/

1 LAST DANCE WITH MY FATHER // Njambi McGrath

It's not just African AIDS statistics that Njambi McGrath carries around with her; she bears the generational physical and mental scars of Kenya’s colonial past. Teresa Mays recent political wrangling to scrape The Human Rights Act seem unsurprising when Njambi offers an African’s insight into the systematic extermination of the populations of Kenya and DRC by European Imperialists. It's the West's inability to see the hypocrisy in lecturing Africa Nations on human rights that has recently led to Gambia withdrawing from The Commonwealth.

Njambi manages to cover a diverse and vast range of topics during her hour on stage including The Wealth Divide, Donald Trump’s seemingly imminent Mexican wall, Oscar Pretorius and Guantanamo Bay. But all these topics are used as humorous asides to her starling account of surviving her father’s emotional and physical abuse. Njambi makes light of his regular brutalities as she strays from current events into autobiographical territory. She stresses her father was surely a feminist as he maintained all females should obtain a good education but then describes how he beat her to unconsciousness after learning she had an abortion.

1 Last Dance with My father is a story of survival, on first impression Njambi’s survival of her father, but as the narrative progresses we learn that Njambi’s father was an orphan of a Kenyan resettlement camp, found suckling the teat of his dead mother. His death begins a journey of understanding and forgiveness, a personal parallel to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Njambi challenges our perceptions of Africa and its people while maintaining a western discourse on current political events such as The Brexit and even manages to get a gasp from the audience on suggesting that Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai is probably a cunt.

- Lucy Orr

1 Last Dance with My father is on at 14.30 at Laughing Horse @ Espionage (Venue 185) until August 27th. Wheelchair Accessible Toilets.https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/1-last-dance-with-my-father

Mau Mau uprising: Kenyans still waiting for justice join class action over Britain's role in the emergency -Thousands of elderly people claim mistreatment, rape and torture by colonial forces http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/mau-mau-uprising-kenyans-still-waiting-for-justice-join-class-action-over-britains-role-in-the-9877808.html

Domestic violence is biggest threat to west Africa's women, IRC says https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/may/22/domestic-violence-west-africa-irc

Leslie Dodson: Don’t misrepresent Africa https://www.ted.com/talks/leslie_dodson_don_t_misrepresent_africa

HERO WORSHIP // Sonic Boom

Hero Worship deals with comics as a coping mechanism and is the latest in a series of monologues by admired writer-performer Kenny Boyle. Cyberpunk clothing and a utility belt are instantly familiar from the comic Kick Ass as is our hero, a 21st century everyman working in a SUPERmarket. His main enemies are probably familiar to all of us and go by the names of anxiety, depression and uncertainty.  Using imagination to escape the mundane is a central theme in hero Worship but it’s stressed, that the complexities of real life are what make us who we are and build our personalities. Boyle reiterates though out the performance that it’s everyday moral choices such as caring for an animal or falling in love that make us truly powerful. 

Just like Batman and Superman our hero is an orphan and troubled by childhood loss. By becoming The Flash he suggests his imagination lets him run so fast, that death and pain become insignificant. Boyle uses spoken word filled with rhyming references to a vast comic universe to transcend reality, but this doesn’t stop him bringing us violently down to earth with a powerful description of a physical attack.

During the performance Boyle points to members of the audience and assigns them powers: these aren’t telekinesis or invisibility, but empathy and commonsense. Hero Worship consistently asserts that men in tights and robot fights can do wonders to bolster self-confidence and self-awareness.

Comics preserve the tradition of visual storytelling vital to humanity. More recently, they have become a literary platform that pushes traditional narrative boundaries by addressing a whole spectrum of physical and mental health issues, ranging from body shaming and feminism to LGBT rights. These days graphic novels have a lot to say. At the end of the performance when our hero is unmasked and the therapy is complete. He has escaped the escapism and been assured by his new found love that she didn’t need saving; just for him to be there, a partner in life’s daily fight.

To be continued…(LO)

Hero Worship is on at 13.30 at C venues – C (Venue 34) until August 29th. Wheelchair Access, Level Access -https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/hero-worship

 Welcome to Bitch Planet - the comic that's reimagining feminism: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/06/bitch-planet-comic-feminism

The Rise of Superhero Therapy - Comic Books as Psychological Treatment: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/17/the-rise-of-superhero-therapy-comic-books-as-psychological-treatment.html

The effect of comic books on the ideology of children: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ort/11/3/540/

The visual magic of comics - Scott McCloud: https://www.ted.com/talks/scott_mccloud_on_comics?language=en

PUSSYFOOTING // Knotworks

Five self-identified non-men interrogate the tropes of womanhood, the limits and pressures of gender and the political ramifications of their bodies, built from a research process of interviews and workshops. Pussyfooting rehearses the core concerns of contemporary feminism, of the positions taken and opinions thrown on University campuses, internet message boards and in the corner boxes of broadsheets who should do better. It smartly favours autobiography, keeping the focus on the lives of the performers and their peers, a policy that sacrifices some intersectional awareness in favour of personal authenticity. The piece questions the expectations of family and schoolmates, highlights the difficulty and necessity of gender assertion and enjoys the community found amongst university peers through the first steps of the development of an artistic practice.
 
Pussyfooting addresses tropes of female identity in meme-like fashion, short humorous moments of insight that survey the depressingly vast catalogue of problems perpetrated by a clueless culture of patriarchy. Any one of the issues referenced might be a full show; the intolerance and misunderstanding of sexual orientation, the disempowerment of women even over the agency of their clothing choices (seen so vividly and disturbingly now in France’s burkini ban) or the deft undermining of women’s voices as authoritative or knowledgeable about ‘male’ subjects. Similarly, the show enacts a challenge of the logical fallacy that a woman is defined by female genitals, or periods, or not having a penis. As the fringe happens this year in the shadow of the Rio Olympics, the interrogation of gender and identity is brought into sharper relief by the shameful questioning of South African sprinter Caster Semenya’s fitness to race by pundits and the press. The performers encourage the audience to question uncritical assumptions of fixed biological definition by referencing women who identify as such without adhering to prescribed biology or meaningless societal conventions.

- Lewis Church

Pussyfooting is on at 20.10 at Paradise in the Vault until August 28th. Wheelchair Acces, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets, Relaxed Performances - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/pussyfooting

Knotworks Theatre: http://knotworksox.tumblr.com
 
Burkini Ban/Clothing Agency: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/burkini-swimwear-ban-france-nice-armed-police-hijab-muslim-a7206776.html
 
Understanding the Caster-Semenya Controversy: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/sports/caster-semenya-800-meters.html?_r=0
 
The Sporting Spectacle (Jennifer Doyle), Capturing Semenya: https://thesportspectacle.com/2016/08/16/capturing-semenya/