Adelaide Fringe 2020 review: Girl Shut Your Mouth
Expect to come away reeling from a play that is all too true to life performed by this excellent cast of young actors.
Theatre
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Girl Shut Your Mouth
Theatre / NSW
Rating: *****
Mainstage, Bakehouse Theatre
Until March 14
Four young women inhabit the stage at the beginning of this brilliant piece of theatre.
They look and behave like most teenage girls – having a less than riveting chat about the imminent departure of one for a land of milk and honey.
It’s a place where people wait with open arms, where “the drinks are minty and no one tells you how to live your life”.
But this destination’s list of attractions grows – no one shoots you for going to school or for going out at night, nor is your house bombed at any given moment.
Now it’s a matter of elimination for the audience.
Are the girls in Rwanda, Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine, Chechnya?
In the end, the geography is moot.
What matters is that these young women, despite their sass and hopes for the future, all feel threatened on a daily basis and have already suffered ongoing violence and trauma.
One of them has literally been shot and that bullet wound is what she hopes to trade for entry into a new existence.
What happens next is unexpected, shocking and played with extreme precision by this excellent cast of young actors.
Expect to come away reeling from a play that is all too true to life.
