Content warning: mentions of sexual violence.
Directed by Nicholas Pavan, What Every Girl Should Know’s opening night at Flight Path Theatre marked its Australian debut, outside of a non-for-profit university performance. Set in a Catholic Reformatory in 1914, the three teenagers — Anne (Mia McMenamin), Lucy (Katelin Divall) and Theresa (Mikaela Corrigan) — pass the time with games of truth or dare, catch the flag, and ritualistic masturbation.
Upon the arrival of the belligerent Joan (Alice Mahony), the girls discover illegal contraband: birth control and Margaret Sanger’s 1913 sex education column in the New York Call, ‘What Every Girl Should Know’. The girls begin to jokingly venerate Sanger, quickly escalating into full-fledged canonisation. For the four girls, Sanger becomes their patron saint, for whom they undergo a conversion and develop a fantasy world around. Set in the confines of their dorm room, the play attempts to offer an intimate portrayal of girlhood punctured by patriarchal abuse and Catholic guilt.
While the play had the potential to be a poignant reflection on the systemic injustice of Catholic reformatories, and the broader culpability of sexual deviance that is unduly placed on women’s shoulders, it unfortunately fell short.
The set design and Corrigan’s costume design effectively transported the audience to the young girls’ dormitory. Four single beds were positioned in the corners of the stage, adorned with patron saints on each bedhead, mirrors as windows, reminiscent of one-way mirrors in interrogation rooms, and a prayer candle motif; an undoubtedly oppressive Catholic setting. Corrigan’s overall performance should be commended for its subtlety and emotional depth. The lighting also warrants praise; Jo Wasson effectively and seamlessly framed the characters’ asides while capturing the cyclical nature of day and night. I particularly appreciated the detail of the bedside lamps remaining on as the overhead lights shifted, creating a sense of intimacy within the room. The director’s decision to relocate the setting of Monica Byrne’s American play to a small town in New South Wales was a thoughtful choice that recontextualized the pertinent themes, allowing for a deeper connection with the audience.
However, the choice to use the weekly newspaper as a central prop was contextually jarring; characters read updates on Margaret Sanger’s life in 1913 from a paper that, incongruously, featured this week’s AFL headlines on the front page. This may have been an intentional choice by the director, perhaps a hidden comment on the link between women’s subjugation and hegemonic masculine sport cultures. However, this seems like a stretch. Regardless, it is inconsistent with the otherwise absence of modern props and overall historical accuracy in the set design in such a way that resisted metaphorical interpretations.
Usually, actors’ raised voices or yells signify shocking shifts in tone or an outpouring of joy, but they only work when used sparingly and purposefully. However, when such screams become expected every few minutes, the audience quickly tires. In the intimate Flight Path Theatre, these calls were dominant and resonant, perhaps in a way not intended. The actors’ joyful exclamations were delivered with the same intensity as their frightened screams, constituting in a hyperbolized portrayal of young womanhood. Rather than subverting or challenging tropes, this approach led to thinly developed characters.
Joan and Anne’s rebellious streak, in swearing, stealing and general antics, could have disrupted modern day assumptions on 20th-century womanhood. Instead, their characterization as unruly caricatures reduced this potential to a predictable construction of deviant femininity, trapped within the confines of tired stereotypes of hysterical women. The audience was left to wonder: was all the screaming necessary? The actors often teetered on the edge of overacting, stifling the emotional depth of the dialogue and themes. Even moments of exposition surrounding sexual trauma, which demanded delicacy and respect, felt shoehorned as mere plot devices.
As a result, the climactic moment failed to achieve its intended impact. Nearing the climax in the third act, the characters took turns speaking in unison, but the delivery of these lines evoked the feeling of HSC Drama or amateur theatrics. Lucy’s descent into desperation in the final act was genuinely unsettling, but the scene’s power was ultimately diluted by the constant, overwhelming volume of the preceding performances. That being said, McMenamin, Divall and Corrigan’s tears were compelling and believable, providing a brief respite from the exaggerated emotions.
Unfortunately, the swift pacing could not make up for the lack of clarity, or purposeful disorientation, in the structure of Byrne’s play. Attempts at magical realism, where the characters’ dreams blended into their reality, was ultimately unclear and dizzying, with jarring tone shifts and jumps to the characters’ seeming possession resulting in confusion.
Although I appreciate the intention of the performance, it is unfortunate that such pertinent themes and delicate topics were effectively undermined.
What Every Girl Should Know plays from 25–28 September at the Flight Path Theatre as part of Sydney Fringe Festival 2024. Tickets can be found here.
