Writer: Sabean Bea and Alanna Flynn
Director: Julia Sudzinsky
It’s absolutely fine not to spoon-feed an audience with a full backstory. By all means, make them work for complete understanding, let the little grey cells have a workout. But some context and world-building are essential so we can both fully understand and embrace the message of a play, as well as avoid being distracted throughout by questions of what it is we’re looking at.
The ideas here in Dolls and Guys are rock solid. It puts the focus on a diverse group of single women and the difficulties and potholes they face when getting matched up in a relationship. It also has a nice line of well-delivered jokes, and some interesting and in-depth thoughts about how girls of all ages experience a male-dominated world. The play presents all this with five women as dolls in a shop, there to be picked out by a variety of men who range from unappealing to downright harmful. A man comes in, the shopkeeper literally picks a girl out for him and off he goes. In between these moments of being chosen the women talk, fight, support and challenge each other about life, sex, relationships and their ambitions.
The concept is great – but its delivery creates holes and snags that interrupt the key ideas shining through. In the play’s world, it’s unclear if literally the women are in a shop for sale, or if it’s just a metaphor. If real, how do these women of different life experiences come to be here, is this how all relationships are formed, is it voluntary or are they somehow sent there? It may seem like purposefully and unnecessarily picking holes, but given the treatment of these women, the question of whether they’re forced to be here or if they consent to this set-up is important.
If it’s a metaphor and the women are, in truth, out living their lives normally and this is just how they view dating – then more questions arise about how other women in this world do it, their own sense of self and power, and who in their real lives plays the role of shopkeeper who acts as pimp for his chattels. Clearing up some of the fundamental questions of the situation the women are in, within the narrative, would provide much stronger infrastructure for Sabean Bea and Alanna Flynn’s exploration of relationships and female lived experience.
The boredom of the women on the shelf, grooming themselves and playing charades as they wait to be picked, hits with a wave of sadness and loneliness. This combines well with the increasing note of despair from Soraya (played with vim and charisma by Kerry Boyne) who changes her identity rapidly and frequently to try and get picked and kept. The lack of the women’s agency and control over their lives, their struggles between their true and adopted identities and personalities, the desperation to leave “the shelf” and the attempts to keep a brave face do, despite the lack of clarity elsewhere, come through strongly and it’s here that the play lands its most impactful punches.
Unsteady performances with flat delivery, at times even in moments of heightened emotion, don’t do this story any favours, and some inelegant writing which makes some interactions feel scripted and affected rather than naturally presented further blocks the flow of this piece. Most of the elements are there to deliver a thought-provoking and well-observed hour, but a little more stability in the core would go a long way.
Runs until 9 September 2023
