Hard to Swallow

Sitting over brunch with two girlfriends recently, we were chatting about show choices and how to get people back to the theatre, particularly older folk who are quite changed socially from Covid, even six years on.

Is it a period drama, murder mystery or musical that will get ‘bums on seats’? What about a good old farce? Laugh a minute banter, a bit of slap and tickle, tits and arse?

There was a dense, jarring, queasy pause.

I think I threw up a little in my mouth. The bile was acidic and uncomfortably familiar.

When did the theatre of casual sexism shift? Minuscule, insignificant, scantily clad roles for women are still around, as are many of their playwrights, but when did we say “gross, no thanks!”? And has this impacted community theatre?

I think the answer is in the tales told over brunch by the women who have lived it, performed it, even directed it. And definitely watched it - from the audience…and not.

When we’re young we seem to accept that many stage roles for women are tiny. We just want ‘a go’ - to be up there and part of it. Even if the men have twenty-thousand lines and we have four, we make those four really count. Even if the role is deemed Girl no.2 or Flower Seller, we take it all very seriously, hoping this is our groundbreaking moment where the company will notice us and perhaps upgrade us to Milkmaid in the next production. 

But just because we’re young, gorgeous and keen, it doesn’t make us completely naive. 

It’s the shift from ‘Entrepreneurial Independent’ Milkmaid to jokes about ‘jugs’, tight costumes with popping cleavage and chases by old men off into the wings that make many of these roles and shows hard to swallow. 

Scenes with a man licking his lips as he imagines a woman wearing “fleshings” might be amusing to a select few old farts, but for a lot of us, they’re the bitter cud of times that are, thankfully, well in the past.

I often hear our older members say ‘No one can have a laugh anymore! Gone are the good old days where people could take it on the chin, see it as a compliment.’ But you can’t convince me that watching a young woman, even a girl, be critiqued, chased, ogled, gawked at and even handled by a leering, usually older, guy is not uncomfortable. For anyone. Particularly for women. That lump in the back of your throat isn’t the onset of laughter. It’s a memory. A moment. It’s painful. It’s acceptance. And it’s real.

There’s something about condoning the bad behaviour of the select few old farts that irritates me. 

I’ve been to see serious dramas where there isn’t a dry eye - tears pouring down the carpeted stairs and there’ll still be some old bloke in row B laughing, like he doesn’t know how to tap into his own humanity. He’d rather laugh at the absurdity of life’s tragedies than admit the absurdity of its realities; slapping his knee when the word ‘boobies’ is used in a script for the tenth time. 

And is he who we’re really here for?

Is community theatre really made for the creepy uncle who only came because his wife bought tickets and made him come?

I don’t think it is.

I believe theatre should make you uncomfortable, that’s the point of many great plays. But in your discomfort it should make you feel. Make you realise. Make you laugh and cry, but most of all make you question. 

I’ve been in and to many glorious plays with fabulously funny female leads. From ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ to ‘The Female of the Species’ to ‘Nunsense the Musical’, we know how to ‘make ‘em laugh’. They are easy to digest, they slide down the throat with delicious flavour and include everyone in their merriment. Silliness doesn’t have to handle ostracisation. It never should have.

Theatre has changed because the world has changed. You cannot stand in the way of progress, even if you think the world is less fun. 

Fun is not objectification.

Fun is not dehumanisation.

Fun is not acrimonious. 

And yes, fun isn’t the same for everyone. But it shouldn’t be agonising for many.

My girlfriends at brunch discussed these things at length, each telling their own tales of having to ward off wayward hands, protect young actresses backstage or report certain behaviour to the committee. And all of these memories and moments were connected to these belittling farces - productions in their past that have been stuck in their gullets for many years.

Comedies are definitely crowd pleasers and they can provide incredible relief from the drudgery of the everyday.

But we agreed we should find good ones.

And let the select few old farts remain at home where they belong.