Righteous feminist rage and raging teenage hormones collide in SUDS’s latest production Screwd! In its profoundly unselfconscious portrayal of sexuality, the play captures the confusions, frustrations, indignities and inconsistencies of modern womanhood. It is both uproariously funny and deeply relatable.
Based loosely on Aristophanes’ Greek comedy Lysistrata, Screwd! sees our protagonist, Frankie, lead her friends in a sex-strike against the tyranny of mediocre boyfriends and unsatisfying sex. What her friends don’t know is that she has an ulterior motive: she is in love with her best friend, Olivia.
Initially, the strike seems to be working. Her friends reconnect with their bodies and find solidarity in their friendship. Meanwhile, their boyfriends are hornier than ever. It is all going exactly to plan, until the boyfriends realise what is happening and try to win back their partners. As the Year 12 formal approaches, Frankie’s friends are losing their resolve, and Frankie feels her friendships threatened. She hatches a scheme to expose Olivia’s boyfriend for cheating, humiliating Olivia and alienating her friends in the process. While the play largely affirms Frankie’s perspective, it also holds her accountable for her callous actions.
Georgia Gray-Spencer affords Frankie a charisma and a sincerity that draws the audience’s empathy despite her controlling behaviour. She captures the blazing idealism that masks Frankie’s insecurity. This complexity is made most apparent when Frankie consults her teacher, Mr Felton, about her issues with her friends. She sits cross-legged on his desk and delivers a feminist monologue with breathless conviction. When Frankie continues the monologue as she stands centre-stage, the audience shares in her rage at the everyday manifestations of the patriarchy. At the same time, it is also painfully obvious that Frankie is, at least in part, motivated by a discomfort with her own sexuality. It is a testament to the talents of writer-directors Eloise Aiken and Mariika Mehigan that the play is able to balance stirring feminist arguments with complex characters, without compromising the significance of either.
Gray-Spencer leads a dynamic cast with undeniable chemistry. Though the characters represent various high school archetypes, the cast bring new and exciting energy to their respective roles.
Some of the best lines of the play are given to Judd, a man who is “always carrying a book and wants you to ask about it.” Judd reads Hemingway and Kerouac, and finds it hard to be there for his girlfriend because “he’s just been so stressed out with global warming.” Never predictable but always hilarious, Sophie Newby brilliantly captures the thinly-veiled misogyny of the so-called left-wing intellectual man.
Special mention is also owed to Daisy Semmler and Mitchell Dihm. Semmler’s commitment to the role of the students’ English teacher, Mr Felton, who offers useful wisdom but would rather be doing hot yoga, is remarkable. In addition to his sparkling delivery of witty lines, Dihm brings depth to the role of Charlie. It is moving to witness Charlie come to value himself more when he stands up to his closeted boyfriend.
Aiken and Mehigan’s script is filled with sharp humour and exquisite pop-culture references. The final act occasionally leans too far into the teenage theatrics of the plot, but quickly reins it in with self-aware jokes and a well-timed breaking of the fourth wall. The play is primarily comedic, but there are moments of real emotional stakes, which expose the true prejudices that exist beneath the tolerant facades of the male characters.
When Frankie launches into an impassioned analysis of Lysistrata, she points out that the play was intended to be funny because the idea of women in politics was absurd. The real strength of Screwd! lies in its inversion of the punchline. It empathises with its female characters and has us laughing squarely at the absurdity of male entitlement.
Screwd! is playing at the Cellar Theatre from February 20 until March 2. All 8 show nights sold out before performance week but tickets remain for an added matinee on March 2 at 1.30pm. Tickets available here.
