Anne-Marie Duff delivers a deeply affecting performance in Helen Edmundson's searing drama about misogyny, now playing at the National Theatre's Dorfman theatre until November 21. The play, which opened on Friday, 23rd October, explores the emotional fallout for a woman who dares to stand up to an 11-year-old boy she has never met before.
A plausible inciting event with gripping consequences
Edmundson's drama has several unlikely plot points, but the inciting event is all too plausible. Julie, played by Duff, is a middle-aged woman who is shocked by the behaviour of Tyler, an unseen boy who calls her an effing bitch on a station platform. She decides to report him to the headmaster of his school, played by Daniel Millar.
Unfortunately, her actions have repercussions when Tyler raises the stakes by making counter-accusations. The story then follows Julie as she navigates the fallout, with her life beginning to unravel.
Family dynamics and personal doubt
Julie is divorced. Over the course of the play, we learn that Richard's affair, played by Geoffrey Streatfeild, ended their marriage some years earlier. Julie retains a nagging sense that she is somehow to blame for her family's flaws.
Her youngest daughter Ginnie, played by a sympathetic Grace Doherty, suffers from depression, while her older daughter Kate, played by a fiery Hannah Onslow, can't wait to put some distance between them, moving abroad for work with her boyfriend Nathan, played by an emphatic Tobi King-Bakare.
Legal pressure and generational misogyny
When Julie's lawyer, played by Ioanna Kimbook, encourages her to plead guilty to the lesser of two charges, Julie begins to doubt herself. Then Tyler's father, played by Stephen Wight, visits her in a far-fetched but menacing scene that lays bare how easily misogyny is passed down the generations.
Blanche McIntyre's handsome production is played out on Robert Jones's cold, grey-tiled set, which serves as family kitchen, courtroom, train platform and metaphorical prison.
A compelling and topical drama
Despite a story that stretches our credulity at times, Duff's performance is deeply affecting, capturing the disbelief and steely determination of an ordinary woman whose life is unravelling. The play is a compelling and topical drama that runs until November 21 at the National Theatre's Dorfman venue.
