Ooh Missus! Performed by the Red Rag Women's Theatre Company Written by Winnie Elliott and Lois Charlton Reviewed by Sam Inman 'DE-DYKE THE ROOM!' -a hauntingly familiar scream for any lesbian not out to her parents when Mother appears unexpectedly on the doorstep. She is of course lett there until every dykey trace has been expunged from communal areas of the house.
so it is in Con Missus! And captured with the maniacal farce that really does sometimes exist in real life. Except in most lesbian houscholds there is not the advantage of having reversible pictures on the wall, photos on the mantlepiece or even noticeboards above the phone. Hhmm - worth thinkng about, that one...
ane pary is orutanay funny, packed with all manhumour. Set in 'Sisters Avenue, SWIl', a whole auge or esplan stereosy pe re savagely sent up. In its preview Spare Rib warned srim reminiss stay away of you may come out another Penny and Jenny (inny Keatinge and Denise Francis) are the sickensy monogamous middle-class coupie. ronny she therapist and Jenny the Earth Mother. Jenny's attempts at self-insematon - to complete their cosy little family - are wonderfully thwarted by the appearance of Jenny's mother, Audrey Jan Haydn), who 'just happened to be passing' while canvassing for the Tories. Penny and Jenny. They have Hettie (Winnie Elliott), who while emphasising her happy heterosexual marriage, constantly reveals her closet curiosity about What lesbsans do in bed. Who doesn't know a straight women like this? thank-you-mam' scene-dyke, Fran (Laura Brigeman who aiso lives in the house. She constantly preens herse!! in a butch sort of way, and is forever showing-off her finetorals. No monogamous relationships for her. It treme for Fran to deny her body to any woman who should desire it. And who wouldn't?
Two others, deliberately both named Jane, make up the cast. Jane 1 Jackie Clune) and Jane 2 (Maureen Philert) both, confusingly, ap atas 0 0885 01 6 spare room.
Jane 1, a former lover of Fran's, gets into the house by deception. She's the 'don'tlyke, who's happy so long as her dope-bag is full, has a Toot over ner nead and xel laid once in a while.
In stark contrast, Jane 2 is the young, wonderfully naive and embarrassingly unthe closet and consequently was thrown out of her parent's house. Her attempts it following in Fran's superteacher, and his girlfriend who accompartien Tre to university, black women are shown throughout the film in a thoroughly negative light; they are stereotypically 'bad' mothers and sex objects, to drugs which take prionty in kids But as Mike Davis shows in his compelling Angeles, the violent gangs based on a drugs economy, are not the result of the rejection of more immediate financial reward, but rather are the culmination of a more complex process of the political defeat of black self-organisation in the carly 70s and the complete withdrawal of welfare support in the face of the economic collapse of the area With unemployment amongst blac k youth of LA county running at 90% through the late '80s (and probably now even highes), below, or hovering on, the poverty line, the job creation cool footsteps make the audience cringe.
Maureen Philbert's performance as Jane 2 was perhaps the best. But all the characters were played incredibly well by the cast. The play itself caricatures aspects of lesbianism that every dyke will recognise in herself, her triends, acquaintances and lovers.
One sad thing though, is that few others will get to see the play, particularly outside London. As the Spare Rio review said, the reason Red as can be as outrageous ar they like now, is that they have no funding. Conse quently no-one gets paid and touring is severely limited. That's bad news for anyone who, like me, enjoys a good laugh at themselves.