“And what a script” Paul Hardwick ★★★★★

Superwoman ★★★★★

Wadham, Friday 27th November, 3.45pm,

Review by Paul Hardwick

Ella Evans must be commended not only for chancing her arm at writing, directing and starring in Superwoman but in doing it so very well. The play was little more than a stream of consciousness centred about the protagonist’s reflection and reflections at seeing a beautiful woman pass in the street. Evans, surrounded by a trio chorus, accompanied a self-recording of her monologue with an array of actions and line echos. Not only did this add depth to the script, doubly performed, but it maintained the pace of the performance throughout. A suitcase for a props cupboard helped create a host of intriguing images and scenes as freely associated as the script. And what a script. More of a prose poem the voice of the play revels in the phonetics, lingering over all the automatic sound associations of lines such as ‘Clack clack went her shoes, clacking in the rain, rain clacking, cluc / King shoes.fucking rain. / Fucking rain’. If it were not for the inconsistent utilisation of the chorus, this would have been a very special play indeed.