Sunday
Herald
The
uncomfortable theme of the medicalisation of
women's experience is even more prominent in
RedCape Theatre's excellent piece The Idiot Colony.
Based upon true stories, Lisle Turner's play
reflects the lives of women who were incarcerated
in the 1930s and 1940s as "moral defectives' - a
term applied to, among others, lesbians and women
who had become pregnant outwith marriage. Some of
the women remained in the institutions until the
late 1980s.
Andrew Dawson's production is blessed with a fine three-strong cast. The excellent actress Cassie Friend gives a particularly memorable and poignant performance, not least when her character relives her love affair with an African-American GI. One becomes deeply anxious as, towards the end of the play, Friend begins to black up, but it soon becomes clear that this reflects not racial insensitivity on the part of the production, but rather the deep distress of her character.
There are some superb, metaphorical visual images, and the carefully choreographed movement contributes wonderfully to the pathos and the humour of the play. The use of music to shift us back and forth between the 1940s and the 1980s is, perhaps, a little gratuitous at times. Ultimately, however, The Idiot Colony is an affecting and intelligently dramatised consideration of a shameful and little discussed episode in British medical history.
By Mark Brown, 24th August 2008
Andrew Dawson's production is blessed with a fine three-strong cast. The excellent actress Cassie Friend gives a particularly memorable and poignant performance, not least when her character relives her love affair with an African-American GI. One becomes deeply anxious as, towards the end of the play, Friend begins to black up, but it soon becomes clear that this reflects not racial insensitivity on the part of the production, but rather the deep distress of her character.
There are some superb, metaphorical visual images, and the carefully choreographed movement contributes wonderfully to the pathos and the humour of the play. The use of music to shift us back and forth between the 1940s and the 1980s is, perhaps, a little gratuitous at times. Ultimately, however, The Idiot Colony is an affecting and intelligently dramatised consideration of a shameful and little discussed episode in British medical history.
By Mark Brown, 24th August 2008