★★★
Hannah Mary Taylor’s performance as Sasha is mesmerising. She is an earthy performer that encapsulates the roller-coaster of emotion and pain her character goes through.
Dracume Theatre have constructed Sasha’s world with a clever attention to detail. The room where Sasha is hauled up for much of the time, her periods giving her excruciating pain, lends the piece an engaging reality.
The sense of knowing from many in the audience of what Sasha describes is telling, that of a woman crippled by pain, only to be gaslit by medical professionals. The pace of the writing is so measured that we feel her unending pain and we just want someone to help. There is levity in the piece, I liked the references to the trashy erotic novels Sasha reads to distract herself. The realisation that this extreme period paid is actually endometriosis, and even the diagnosis of a hidden disability is hard to come by. That tests don’t always lead to answers, and the reliance on opioids over treatment is another sad reality of the way women are fobbed off rather than helped by the medical community.
For all its excellent exploration of a necessary topic, there was a distinct lack of a larger narrative and characterisation. I felt that the piece was a great engine, but we didn’t get to hear much from anyone Sasha interacts with, perhaps this was intentional to give a sense of isolation, but there could also have been more inner characterisation. Still, it’s an important work that deserves a wide audience.
The Spilling Cup is on at The Space at Surgeon’s Hall until August 25th
