Something in the Water
From the confronting opening scene – ‘it’s a girl!’ – to its philosophical ending, Something in the Water is a funny, silly, pointed, and relevant exploration of gender, conformity, and ‘what is normal?’.
Presented by Scantily Glad Theatre, a queer and feminist company from Canada, the artist of this show, S.E. Grummett, has been stuck in Australia since last year’s Fringe. Grummett's only ‘complaint’ seems to be the inability to buy plastic forks (you’ll have to go and find out why they’re important).
Grummett takes us through a typical date, asking us to shout out what is ‘normal’ and what isn’t. It’s a hilarious take on dating, which transforms into a commentary on what society and advertising tell us about being a man or a woman; what our birth sex means to our attitudes and behaviours. Grummett uses a camera and projector to help tell the story, the backgrounds to each scene drawn and cleverly integrated with dolls and other props. Grummett is disarming yet challenging – is it really ‘my choice’ if I have to be told that in a TV commercial?
When we are taken through the tale of Grummett’s own date, which ends unusually with a part-transformation into a squid, we are challenged again: if this person doesn’t conform, are they a monster or a hero? Grummett succeeds in this exploration by balancing silly humour with biting social commentary.
It’s not for the faint-hearted, making good use of its adult rating (though there is a family-friendly version of this show, also in the Fringe), but one of the final lines makes the message simple: ‘there’s a script we were given when we were born. Sometimes we have to go off-script’.
Mark Wickett
Photographer: Kenton Doupe.
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