Tag Archives: Jude Christian

Bodies

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs (****)

© Bronwen Sharp, Salma Hoque as the Indian surrogate mother, Lakshmi

© Bronwen Sharp, Salma Hoque as the Indian surrogate mother, Lakshmi

It’s a very strange feeling when you come across two new plays with almost identical themes – a zeitgeist moment where an idea floating in the ether gets picked up by two playwrights in close time proximity. Continue reading

Lela & Co

Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, London

© Helen Maybanks

© Helen Maybanks

****

The title is deeply ironic. Lela & Co stands for not only the injuries perpetrated on the central character, Lela, of Cordelia Lynn’s extraordinary imagination, but all those young girls whose abuse has hit the headlines in Bradford, High Wycombe and indeed, worldwide where women have been violated. The Co stands for an army of female abuse as well as a horrifically satirical comment on, you might say, the trafficking in female flesh, the business it becomes. Like Great Britain plc, so the sale of women. Lela & Co. A corporate company. A dozen times I thought of Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan where the perception of women is as of goods and chattels or part and parcel of the trophy of war. Continue reading