Adelaide Fringe review 2017: Scorch
IRISH actor Amy McAllister mesmerises as a troubled teenage girl in this solo show inspired by real events in the UK.
Scorch
Theatre *****
Holden Street Theatres, until March 19
IT may be a solo show but Scorch is very much about duality, from wrestling with gender identity to inventing online avatars and even blurring the lines between dance and theatre.
Irish actor Amy McAllister is completely mesmerising and wholly engaging as Kez, a troubled teenage girl who has grown up surrounded by boys and is mistaken for a male in her online gaming community – in particular by another girl with who she finds first love and begins a physical relationship.
As the soundtrack music starts, so McAllister begins twitching and jerking until her movements become both a form of choreography and a visual language which echoes the distinctive meter of Belfast playwright Stacey Gregg’s script.
McAllister brings an impish charm to Kez as director Emma Jordan keeps the character continually moving in and out of the audience, which surrounds a circular performance space and silently doubles as her therapy group.
Inspired by real events in the UK, where several young women have been prosecuted for presenting themselves as boys and starting sexual relationships with other teenage girls, the play is unusual in the way that Kez owns responsibility for both her actions and her guilt – yet is empathetic to how she is also a victim who suffers.
Patrick McDonald