It’s an impressive debut work and a bracing, magnetic performance. But much of the ground it covers fits the “messy woman” trope. Alice Fitzgerald’s production is packed with hectic sound and lighting cues, and wit.
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Sarah Hanly has written and performs this heart-felt piece, clearly semi-autobiographical and full of insight into what it feels like growing up as a lesbian (or purple as she decides to call herself) in a convent school in County Wicklow and beyond.
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...Sarah Hanly’s monologue, with its frank, ecstatic expression of desire between women, feels like a rebellion against the norm. First seen at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin last year, the play is otherwise a conventional odyssey of self-discovery, electrified, in Alice Fitzgerald’s vivid production, by kinetic energy.
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Hanly’s writing has a great mix of fun and anger, and her storytelling is rapid and revealing. She has a joyful relationship to word play, rhyming anus with Seamus, and colourfully describing the physical effects of psychological distress and drug abuse.
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You just don’t see this kind of energy and talent debuting every day. If Hanly can develop her considerable talent and sustain this manic pace ... then she will be a big star.
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Under Alice Fitzgerald’s vibrant direction, Hanly bounces around an initially clean, green stage designed by Jacob Lucy. While the play has big ideas, too many are left hanging.
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This play ... is riveting, revolting and exhilarating as it traverses the push and pull between the sacred and the profane. Hanly’s superbly surefooted script and finely tuned performance does stumble a bit ... But it’s a minor quibble ... [it's] a short, sharp shock of essential theatre.
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