BAREtruth Theatre Company present 'Little Stitches.'

By Sophie Scott

BAREtruth Theatre Company presents an evening of plays tackling the subject of FGM.

“How do we get white, middle-class people interested?” cries a charity worker. I wonder if I’ve heard correctly. I’m here! I want to shout. Over here! Centre, three rows from the front. I’m here; and I’m interested.

This was an evening of four promising short plays focusing on female genital mutilation, each interesting and engaging, without sensationalism. The multi-cultural cast (Shuna Snow, Shalini Peiris, Chin Nwenye, Stephanie Yamson, Daphne Alexander) in BAREtruth Theatre’s production are multi-talented – swapping accent, character, and intention, with clarity and conviction. Although some of the direct address was direct-middle-distance in focus and the scene changes were interminable, Alex Crampton’s direction was often sharp and clear, while Anna Privitera’s design was simply effective and (mostly) useful, complimented by Anna Sbokou’s lighting.

Each play is opposed to FGM; each addresses its own concern. “It was never about what I wanted,” says 14-year-old Safa, towards the end of Karis E. Halsall’s shocking MUTANT, while her mother looks on and, slightly awkwardly in the background, a UK medical professional defends his decision to perform resuturing procedures.

Repression and insistent exuberance carry the female propagators of FGM on their DANCING FEET in Bahar Brunton’s contrasting and as-yet-underwritten play. WHERE DO I START? is the question Raul Quiros Molina explores in his verbatim piece using the testimonies of people at the frontline of FGM – a victim, an activist, a charity worker and a midwife, all sharing their opinions and challenges. And, Isley Lynn manages to achieve a sickening acceleration towards the inevitable in a narrative to which we know the end before the beginning, as the voices of five members of the public who touch the life of an unhappy child are interwoven to expose their well-meaning failure to intervene. Lynn’s SLEIGHT OF HAND is the most accomplished of the plays, but each contributes to giving a necessary voice to victims of a crime that seems to be thriving – in part – on silence.

Still, I couldn’t help but feel that I heard nothing new. Little Stitches addresses a painful topic with intelligent sensitivity and it stands as testimony to the power of both the work and the subject that I was provoked to surprise and indignation, empathy and sorrow. The bare brutality of Female Genital Mutilation is difficult to accept and should be known. But, where were the perpetrators? Where were the communities in which this practice takes place? I don’t need to be convinced that Female Genital Mutilation is a horror perpetrated on everyone it touches. But I struggle to imagine many people are in need of convincing – and, in addition to giving voice to the victims’ stories, surely this is the question we need to face: who carries out this atrocity and how can they bare/ choose/ dare to do it?

There must be many of us who feel, like Lynn’s primary school teacher at the start of the summer holidays, such relief when “you can’t do anything, you don’t have to care”. These plays engage our emotions, such that we must care – which is the start of effecting change and powerful theatre. You could hear a pin-drop while Safa made “a sound that could curdle blood” – and the everyday Dalston life provided a depressing background soundscape in the Arcola Tent, reminding me that most of us will never know horror, and most of us will simply return to the relative comforts of our individual homes. To really tackle FGM, we need to accept that people do it, they don’t just suffer it and need fixing. Following this success, I hope BAREtruth Theatre are able to explore that incomprehensible, knotty aspect, next.

LITTLE STITCHES can be seen at the Gate Theatre, London, on 10th September.

The plays will be read in libraries around London from 1st-7th September.

http://www.baretruththeatre.co.uk/

Photo: John Wilson

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