Billed as Nicole Ansari-Cox’s first full-length play, ‘She/Her’ comprises seven stories from real women, interspersing their monologues with live music and video art. The show was first performed in New York last year, and it adapts for wherever it’s being shown (so cue one-liners about Arthur’s Seat).
Part of ‘She/Her’s sell is that it was produced by the writer’s husband, Brian Cox, who we all know as the notorious Logan Roy from ‘Succession’. With this in mind, there’s been inevitable chat branding the show as ‘Brian Cox’s wife’s passion project’ – something that’s unfair, for two reasons. First of all, Ansari-Cox should be able to hold her own as a director, without the association to her husband. Second of all, the show lacks any substantial amount of ‘passion’: ‘project’ on its own would suffice.
Most of ‘She/Her’ felt disjointed and lack-lustre, and the opportunity to explore some uniquely female issues was sorely missed. Sexism? Nah. Motherhood? Not really. Female empowerment? Hardly!
None of the stories were particularly poignant, but some did stand better than others. Callie Rose Petal’s musical performance grew into a captivating climax, her voice aching as she shared her painful struggle being a trans woman. Antoinette Cooper’s tale about growing up as a Black woman was full of personality and zing, as she brushed off her heart-breaking experiences of violence and brutality with finding hope in her relationship with her mother.
But it’s a shame the harder-hitting themes had to be the ones that resonated. Scottish singer-songwriter Mairi Campbell opened the show, but her yarn – about becoming addicted to weed while trying to put together a show – felt unfinished and abrupt. Ada Grace Francis, Campbell’s daughter, had a beautiful voice, but her anecdote about finally passing her driving test felt one-dimensional and flat.
Ansari-Cox herself, though, was a joy to watch. Her story – about discovering orgasms aged nine by rubbing against her toy animal, feeling damned by the Catholic church, and subsequently finding salvation in theatre – was witty and animated. It’s a shame that some of the other stories miss the mark with their humour, such as Michelle Joyner’s offering about coping during the start of the pandemic with an addict son.
Sure, the show tried its best to balance out more intense themes with banal, everyday worries, but it needs to be edited down. The whole thing just feels very incoherent, and it’s a shame. The ending could have been really powerful: all seven women stood together, vulnerable but united, with all of their flaws and doubts cast out into the open. But that’s not what happens at all. What could have been a moving exploration of what it means to be female was instead an unpolished higgledypiggle.
