Screwd! Review
ATYP’s reviewing program was created to give young people a platform to voice their opinions and experiences while developing skills in critical reflection. The views expressed are those of the writer and do not reflect the views of ATYP or its staff.
Sophie Newby, Patrick Fuccilli, Isaac Coombes & Mali Lung in Screwd!, 2024. Photo by Laura Elaine – Booker Media
9.9.2024
Screwd!, as described by co-writer/directors Mariika Mehigan and Eloise Aiken, “is a love letter to teen sex comedies and female friendships”. It truly is deliriously hilarious with its mix of low brow, juvenile humour – my favourite was the school principal calling the students her “little beevers”, a play on the term ‘beaver’ often associated with female genitalia – and a surprising amount of high brow, intellectual wordplay and references – as the play is based (very loosely) on Lysistrata by Aristophanes. However, when it comes down to it, the play succeeds more on the sex comedy side, than a true representation of female friendship.
Mariika Mehigan and Eloise Aiken have written and directed a masterful, heightened play coming in at an ambitious 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a 20-minute intermission. That runtime is well and truly deserved. The writing and storytelling build out a world that feels lived-in and believable, and the pacing ramps up to a blood pumping Act 1 finale that sets the stage for a balls-to-the-walls Act 2. The menstrual cup and male stripper-esque sequences were the standout. After a sold out season at SUDS earlier this year, and with this production being supported by Shopfront Arts Co-Op’s Open Shop residency program, the production quality of the show brings the Flightpath Theatre to life. The subtle sound design (Harry Steele), electric lighting (E.J. Zielinski), practical set design (Sophie Busch & Joseph Feller), and ludicrous props (Jack Fahd & Eloise Rogers) all come together to create a bombastic show that has the audience audibly cringing and on the edge of their seat – at the same time!
Every character is clearly a caricature of someone we would all know in everyday life which draws the audience in and gets them invested in everyone’s personal journey. The four couples – Olivia (Parisa Bell-mir) & Coxie (Patrick Fuccilli), Lux (Jessica Garnett) & Judd (Sophie Newby), Perla (Leatitia Opie) & Harry (Mali Lung), Charlie (Mitchell Dihm) & David (Isaac Coombes) – all do a great job of embodying their characters and making themselves different from each other. Their teacher, Mr. Felton (Daisy Semmler), does a great job of being invested in her kids’ struggles, but always keeping them at arms distance. And, protagonist Frankie Vos – lesbian, libra, and liberatory feminist – played by Georgia Gray Spencer leads the play with a passionate sincerity and earnestness for her friends.
Laetitia Opie, Georgia Gray-Spencer, Parisa Bell-Mir, Jess Garnett & Mitchell Dihm in Screwd!, 2024. Photo by Robert Hoang – Booker Media
The play gets in its own way sometimes. Specifically, it tries to balance stirring feminist arguments with complex characters, and doesn’t always manage to. Instead, a scene or two comes off as ‘preachy’ or inconsistent with the play itself. For example, within the play one of the male characters is an aspiring writer. At one point, his girlfriend calls him out for only having one female character in his novel. According to the girlfriend, the female character is a prostitute and not written very well by him. However, when taking a broader view of the play, the four boyfriend characters aren’t written particularly well either. They are reduced to only wanting sex, where any glimpse of improvement in their behaviour is simply deemed as manipulation to get their girlfriends to sleep with them again, and then they would revert to their original ways. They are dubbed “the oppressors, the enemy” in the metaphor of their relationships at war.
This would be okay-ish, if the person saying that – the protagonist Frankie – had some sort of comeuppance at the end of the play. To an extent, she does. Her brash and erratic behaviour is called out continuously by her friends until she goes too far and they leave her. But, in the end, she is also proven right, everyone breaks up and the girls come back to her. So, the play’s feminist message about female empowerment and friendship, while similar to Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film Barbie, misses the mark and falls for a lesser ending. Despite all this, the roar of the crowd with the play finished, with most of them giving the play a standing ovation, means I find it difficult to be too hard on the play. It is funny. Very funny. The actors give it their all. And, for the most part, it is written and directed incredibly well. If it ever goes on again, do yourself a favour and go see it
★★★★
— Ben Webb