As She Likes It – Greenwich Theatre, London

Writer: Chloe Wade

Director: Tilly Vosburgh

There is a type of political theatre that dedicates itself less to informing an audience of something and more to confirming for them that a shared idea is a jolly good idea, so everyone can leave the auditorium with their rightness reinforced. That means that the contention that men are smelly and horrible and women are oppressed but fundamentally good doesn’t need to be examined, it just needs to be stated and whooped at. This is one of those plays.

Back when Hollywood starlets lit up the silver screen with their fragile feminine charms, they were spending large amounts of their off-screen lives fending off the predatory advances of any man higher up the studio pecking order than they were, which was pretty much everyone except the parking attendants. That era of Hollywood magic-making is represented by a group of female stereotypes – an ageing star, a hilarious screwball heroine, a sex-kitten, the model for the Columbia Pictures lady-with-a-lamp logo, and a Girl Next Door.

They are confronted by a bunch of male stereotypes (played by the women of the company) who are all patronising, predatory, and crass. The female stereotypes get to do some scenes that make them a bit self-aware and ironic, the male stereotypes don’t, but no one goes far enough to become a character. The scenes are played out on a huge bare stage with a smallish screen way at the back, onto which is projected some crackly film clips and a constantly scrolling, constantly out-of-synch surtitle. As well as being distracting, the out-of-synch-ness means that every joke gets a partial pre-view on the screen. Not many jokes can survive that, and few of these do, though the company does its best.

Chloe Wade is the writer and also plays Girl Next Door. The fate of that character, tricked and abused by the studio system, preyed on by casting (couch) directors and meta-theatrical link with the #MeToo movement, is the meat of the play, and her transformation from mouse-like script assistant to righteous feminist warrior should be the heart of it. However, the sketchiness of the character makes her not much more than a stereotype who comes from Huddersfield. There should be more to her than that.

The best bit is the opening sequence, in which Krupa Pattani models for the Columbia Lady-With-a-Lantern logo. There are several takes, massive disregard for the comfort, opinions, or sanity of the woman holding the prop lantern and serial instances of male appropriation of her good ideas. It is sharp and pithy and funny, it encompasses all the themes that the next two hours will re-examine, and the script and the actor give the audience a character they would like to get to know. That’s pretty basic theatre-making, but it is still a good idea.

The question is not “Are such theatre pieces still necessary?” The current travails of E. Jean Carroll are clear indicators that there’s a long way to go. The question is, does it make the argument more or less effective if the piece employs more nuance, more wit, better-drawn characters? This piece presumes the audience’s agreement and doesn’t do much to persuade anyone agnostic. It doesn’t provide many arguments to be used in support of #MeToo, it doesn’t work very hard to convince, and it uses some questionable technical devices which, among other things, effectively kill the jokes.

Runs until 29 January 2024 and continues to tour