This punky, feminist refocusing of a supposed 17th-century English bewitching is fresh, exhilarating and enormous fun. Three women in white sports gear and occasional animal masks spray mud, blood and maple syrup across a bare stage. The story is studded with anachronisms, comic accents and occasionally breaks into beautiful, ominous folksong.
Sloganeering captions scroll across the white backdrop while historian Lydia Higman narrates and strums rock riffs on an electric guitar. Though scrappy and slight, Gunter makes a sharp point about how women’s stories are prioritised by history. It feels more exciting than anything I’ve seen at the Royal Court for a while.
Devised by Higman, actress Julia Grogan and director Rachel Lemon for Dirty Hare, the show won accolades at the Edinburgh Festival. It’s been brought into London’s home of new writing before artistic director David Byrne takes over fully, and makes an excellent palette cleanser for his programming.
It’s 1604, and two young brothers get into a spat during the Ashbourne Shrovetide Football match, a notorious free-for-all, still ‘played’ today. Brian Gunter (Hannah Jarrett-Scott), the richest man in the village, cracks their heads together, killing both. When he’s excused of murder, their mother Elizabeth Gregory (Grogan) protests.
In retaliation, Gunter accuses her of bewitching his daughter Anne (Norah Lopez Holden), who is observed to vomit pins (an image strikingly realised on stage) and exhibit second sight. She also self-harms and convulses. The case goes to Oxford and finally to King James I.
This is conveyed in a hectic medley of music, violent action and simple but clever stage effects. The play is stronger on mood and imagery than narrative, necessarily so. The creators’ central point is that Anne only appears briefly in official records as a voyeuristically sexualized figure, and a tool with which men settle scores. The final say in her case was delayed by the Gunpowder Plot and all later records lost. She disappears from history.
The manner of the staging feels almost more important than the meagre matter on which it is hung. The way the show was devised and envisioned, the democratic sharing of multiple roles and stage time, and the editorialising of Higman all feel like a challenge to established hierarchies.
The introductory notes by the three creators in the playtext/programme argue, sometimes belligerently, for more access and radicalism in art, and a greater appreciation of women’s unheard stories. And having explained how they perform the show, they encourage future companies to “perform it how you like”. Brilliant.
