[2015041] Handle It – A One Woman Show
Laura Jackson @ Bakehouse Theatre – Studio
7:30pm, Wed 18 Feb 2015
I was beginning to think that we’d returned to the halcyon days of the 2000 Fringe, when every second show was a one-hand, multi-character treatise… after my previous show, Handle It featured writer/performer Laura Jackson performing a seven-character narrative exploring one of the darker sides of social networking: the posting of compromising photos without consent, or revenge porn.
It opens with a bloke sitting on the couch, putting his Playstation 4 controller through its paces with hungover determination. James answers his phone, and at once we can see the conflicted male ego on display: equal parts bravado and fear, as the one-sided conversation lays bare the premise of the show: last night, revealing photos were taken of 18-year-old university student Kelsey Armitage without her knowledge, and they were being posted on the usual networking sites.
As Jackson performs a quick costume change, a Facebook chat is projected onto the stage: it shows the aftermath of the photos being posted online, and the response of the guys felt absolutely true-to-life… and sickening, with vicious objectification and testosterone-fuelled bullshit on display. Thereafter comes the fallout: Jackson flits between two of Kelsey’s sisters (with differing views on the perpetrator, and Kelsey herself), an internet sexologist lecturing on modern social behavioural issues, a young solicitor, and a local cop, already weary of cases like Kelsey’s.
Frustration with the lack of legal recourse – not to mention the fact that the photos are already “out there” – propels the story along at a rapid clip; but the persistent secondary thread – a chat session between a male and one of Kelsey’s friends, projected onstage during costume changes – feels terribly contrived. Apart from the toned-down language, that chat is the only part of the dialogue that doesn’t ring true.
Handle It swings for the fences early, attacking rape culture and the pervasive undercurrent of the patriarchy in society with deserved venom… but as the play touches on Kelsey’s fragility – and the eventual “resolution” of the crime as being a domestic violence issue – these big intentions feel watered down and, worse, trivialised. And that’s a bit of a shame, because the bulk of the performance deals with the big issues really well… it’s just let down by some loose writing elsewhere.
(41) Handle It – A One Woman Show: Well-meaning & gutsy (but confused?) look at rape culture, patriarchy, and abuse. #ff2015 #ADLfringe
— Pete Muller (@festivalfreakAU) February 18, 2015