Do men just hate women?
So asks a character in Elinor Cook’s terrific little play, The Girl’s Guide to Saving the World.
It’s a big punch of a question.
Drama is not especially suited to answering such generalised questions, not with its focus on the specific and the concrete.
But, considering their experience, it’s completely understandable why particular women might be led to ask this question, and then to answer it themselves with an angry Yes!
Which is exactly the sort of specific, concrete situation drama excels at presenting – and which is one of the things this play does.
Jane and Bella launch a blog with the goal of telling it how it is from a feminist perspective. The blog immediately goes viral. This success is incredible – in the traditional sense of the word – but the play is a comedy, so hyperbole is par for the course. Sadly, what is entirely credible is how much hate the two women then cop.
Juxtaposed with this storyline is that of the relationship between Jane and her boyfriend, Toby. Though he’s far from a hater, Toby doesn’t really see Jane. Example: Jane announces she has important news (the blog) but Toby jumps in with his own news, and then never gets around to asking about hers. It’s a painfully funny representation of stereotypical male self-centredness.
This juxtaposition of blatant hate and egocentric blindness is provocative. In our culture-fixated culture (no, that’s not a typo) it’s become natural to conflate the two, to see every human behaviour as the result of the dominant cultural norms. The play’s juxtaposition of antipathy and a lack of awareness is an invitation to consider if the two phenomena actually are related. It can also operate as a reminder that a vision of the world that sees every injustice, every torment, and even every misunderstanding, as a manifestation of the patriarchy posits an enemy who might be satisfyingly simple but who is also, inadvertently, granted a demoralizing omnipotence.
Which brings me to another thing the play offers: a snapshot of a couple of personal relationships. (Once again, specific and concrete content.)
Yes, there’s the fraught relationship between Jane and Toby, but there’s also the friendship between Jane and Bella. In some ways, the two relationships are not that dissimilar. Certainly both relationships have Jane musing on the need to live life on her own terms. This focus on choice, as against voice (which the blog symbolises) is a cogent reminder not to let our culture’s fixation with cultural debate blind us to the importance of personal decision making and personal action. (And, yes, at the risk of repetition, I think drama is exceptionally effective at highlighting these aspects of human experience, rather than representing that rather nebulous thing, the zeitgeist.)
The play is a clever, impressionistic comedy, a quick 75 minutes of tickling and poking. True to its comic intentions, it’s speedy rather than thorough.
Under Roisin Wallace-Nash’s direction, the ensemble do splendid work (though there was a moment early on when I started to really long for some vocal variation – which then came with delightful results.)
In a world in flux, Toby focuses on securing a safe role for only himself. Alex Kirwan offers a hilarious portrait of this narrow, clumsy self-obsession.
Mia Fitzgerald as Bella brilliantly manifests the energy of a certainty that entertains no doubts, and so proves especially entertaining when doubts inevitably come knocking.
Bridget Bourke as Jane is the emotional centre of the piece, and there’s a joy in her journey. There’s a joy in witnessing her presentation of restraint in the face of relationships flawed by unexpected pettiness, a restraint that’s part mature avoidance of conflict and part dispirited bewilderment. And there’s an even greater joy in Bourke’s presentation of the epiphany which concludes the character’s journey: this specific, concrete, personal moment is not so much a saving of the world, but a birthing of a whole new one.
Paul Gilchrist
The Girl’s Guide to Saving the World by Elinor Cook
Presented by With Pleasure Productions,
at the Old Fitz until 1 Feb
Image by Robert Miniter
Theatre Red 
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