By Alice Birch

Director Hannah Hauer-King

Performed by BA (Hons) Acting students working alongside students from BA (Hons) Theatre Practice.

Overview

In her opening commentary on Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. playwright Alice Birch vigorously asserts that ‘most importantly, this play should not be well behaved’.

It certainly isn’t – Revolt is not a piece that tries to take care of us or provide answers.

Over 70 rollercoaster minutes, we are propelled through five acts: the first consists of initially recognisable scenarios – work places, dates, supermarkets – all becoming increasingly surreal or grotesque. The moment we feel we are beginning to grasp ‘the point’, we are catapulted into a new act and world. The fleeting naturalism of Act 2 evolves into a quasi-Shakespearian bloodbath. Act 3 revels in unmitigated chaos, returning to motifs and images explored earlier in the play. In final contrast, Act 4 offers the simplicity of the here and now, interrogating the current state of the world we inhabit as women.

Birch leaves us asking – can we truly dismantle the legacy of patriarchy and re-claim our own idea of femininity – are we truly ‘ready’?