Writer: Samara Neely-Cohen
Director: Guy Masterson
It’s not about what you wear, how you carry yourself or where you were. Most importantly it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault but the perpetrator and it’s important to stay strong – which survivor of sexual assault Samara Neely-Cohen shows in abundance during her one-woman show about her experience.
Writer and performer Samara Neely-Cohen’s story is painful, infuriating and yet heartbreakingly common. With sexual assault statistics rising and more people coming forward each day with their own experiences of abuse it’s a terrible truth.. She bravely recounts her story on stage, talking the audience through everything from the incident itself to her frustration with the legal system and reporting process.
Her anecdotes of her experiences are sprinkled with sarcastic humour, alongside truly interesting facts and statistics about the laws surrounding sexual assault around the world. Also littered through the performance are odd mid-scene club dance routines and fanfare over designer clothing labels, taking the narrative away from legal injustice and instead turning it into a bizarre emulation of Legally Blonde. While this may be an attempt to add some light-hearted relief to an otherwise heavy performance, it comes off quite strange and doesn’t fit the overall mood of the show at all. This jarring difference in styles detracts from the main story and makes for an uncomfortable watch while she fist-pumps across the stage to various different songs.
The music is also an interesting inclusion for this performance, and again is often quite distracting for the audience. Neely-Cohen states that her memory is based on ‘where she was, what she wore and what she was listening to’, which explains the multitude of pop songs throughout the show. However, the lyric laden songs play quite loudly during a lot of her speeches, causing everyone to strain to listen to the actual story over the sound of Pink belting out the lyrics of one of her chart-toppers. While the music is integral to her memories, the script is integral to the piece too so either work needs to be done on the volume (instrumental versions could be used), or the songs should be phased out during key parts of her story.
This is a work-in progress but Neely-Cohen’s show could become the voice of a harrowing number of people.
Runs until 30 April 2022
