EXCERPT: "Jordan paints a wonderfully vivid picture of each person's experience."
Summary
'They think I am the most beautiful thing in the world. And I don’t mind being a thing. I don’t want their respect. I want only their animal desire'. Georgie is 30 with dirty secrets. She drinks in her bedroom and hides from the sun. Leah is 15 with teenage dreams. She practices her cum face and Veets. A lot. All-meat, all-sex, all-vulnerable, all-powerful. There's a first time for everything... Isn't there? A punchy and provocative new play by Bruntwood Prize winner Anna Jordan. ‘Incredibly vivid and really upsetting, but in a brilliant way’ (Marianne Elliot on award-winning YEN).
Thoughts
Anna Jordan's Freak explores the sexual experiences of two people: Leah, a young girl of 13 (or 15, I'm confused?), Georgie, a 30 year old woman. One is a sexual awakening that we can all relate to, but that feels too advanced for someone of her young age. The other is a horrific situation where a woman's deep rooted insecurities lead her to take part in a brutal orgy and have a break down. In both instances, Jordan paints a wonderfully vivid picture of each person's experience. When Georgie (Lia Burge) describes how she leaves her body behind and feels like she can see what's happening, because we can see it so clearly too we realise how articulately she has conjured up these scenes and sensations for us. The chain of short term events that conspire to lead them both into these sexual experiences feels entirely credible. However, I'm not sure that the extremity of the events make sense given the nature of the characters. Georgie's psychological problems are only explained as being because she never really came to terms with her dad's death - and I'm just not sure that it is presented as sufficiently problematic that she would have this horrific identity crisis or feel such self-loathing. Although less problematic, I'd also suggest that (if she is indeed only 13) it seemed very young indeed for Leah (April Hughes) to have to be so sexually adventurous and I'm not sure I'd put her character would be the kind to get swept up into that. I also thought the play dipped a bit in the middle and could have been slightly shorter. Fundamentally though, it was incredibly engaging, very well acted by both Burge and Hughes, and a bit thought-provoking about how sex can change people's sense of themselves or be used as escapism. A worthy 503 transfer and production.
Thoughts
Anna Jordan's Freak explores the sexual experiences of two people: Leah, a young girl of 13 (or 15, I'm confused?), Georgie, a 30 year old woman. One is a sexual awakening that we can all relate to, but that feels too advanced for someone of her young age. The other is a horrific situation where a woman's deep rooted insecurities lead her to take part in a brutal orgy and have a break down. In both instances, Jordan paints a wonderfully vivid picture of each person's experience. When Georgie (Lia Burge) describes how she leaves her body behind and feels like she can see what's happening, because we can see it so clearly too we realise how articulately she has conjured up these scenes and sensations for us. The chain of short term events that conspire to lead them both into these sexual experiences feels entirely credible. However, I'm not sure that the extremity of the events make sense given the nature of the characters. Georgie's psychological problems are only explained as being because she never really came to terms with her dad's death - and I'm just not sure that it is presented as sufficiently problematic that she would have this horrific identity crisis or feel such self-loathing. Although less problematic, I'd also suggest that (if she is indeed only 13) it seemed very young indeed for Leah (April Hughes) to have to be so sexually adventurous and I'm not sure I'd put her character would be the kind to get swept up into that. I also thought the play dipped a bit in the middle and could have been slightly shorter. Fundamentally though, it was incredibly engaging, very well acted by both Burge and Hughes, and a bit thought-provoking about how sex can change people's sense of themselves or be used as escapism. A worthy 503 transfer and production.
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