I should probably address the elephant in the room. The Writer is a play railing against the strictures of masculine theatrical authority. I am a man (and a white one, at that).

I would be lying if I said that, at times, this play didn’t feel like something approaching a personal attack. But I would also be lying if I said that this production wasn’t the most thrilling theatre experience I’ve had since I came to Oxford.

We begin with an audience member. She’s left her bag behind at the theatre, but when she goes back to pick it up, she bumps into the play’s director. Their dialogue is not so much a discussion as an outpouring. The audience member’s rage at just about everything crashes against the director’s cold pragmatism. And then, just as tensions reach their high point, everything stops, and we’re treated to a Q&A session in response to the reading/workshop we’ve just witnessed. Gabriella Ofo (Female Actor) and Susie Weidmann (Male Actor) manage the transition impeccably; Rose Martin (The Writer) and Chrissie Hutchings (Director), meanwhile, act out a dynamic that clearly parallels the one we’ve just seen performed.

As these two opening scenes might suggest, this is a very, very meta play. Ofo, in her role as ‘Audience Member’, begins by eviscerating the audience’s desire to suspend their disbelief when the real world around us should lead us all to be crying into our cereal. The Q&A scene, though of course managed, nevertheless left me with the anarchic desire to contribute an unplanned question. Yet when the fourth wall is so completely destroyed as it is by The Writer’s opening scene, there’s always a risk of that spreading where it’s not wanted. Later scenes portraying The Writer’s domestic life were always tinged with the suspicion that something might suddenly break down, that some switch might be flipped.

It is entirely to Martin’s and Weidmann’s credit, then, that The Writer’s relationship with her boyfriend, in the second major scene, is as compelling as it is. (Admittedly, however, I’m still not entirely clear on whether Weidmann was reprising her role as Male Actor or playing a wholly new character here.) Martin’s monologue on the artistic impulse, on the way their character sees the world, was brilliantly performed. Weidmann, meanwhile, alone on stage after an argument spirals out of control, is thoroughly engaging, even with her back turned to the audience.

It is in these individual moments that the two characters are at their most interesting. The dynamic between them, The Writer’s rage at just about everything and his pragmatism, again quite clearly reflects the dynamic between The Writer and Director, and the play does come close to rehashing earlier material here. But it also provides a more nuanced inspection of how power operates in relationships, especially when it comes to romance. (And yes, this play has sex scenes, although a carefully-positioned couch and excellent work by Lex Kaby as intimacy director, and Hope Thain as associate intimacy director, ensure they never come across as exploitative or objectifying.)

Through alternation between stagings of The Writer’s work and these domestic scenes, we get a sense of the vision underlying the play. Life without the strictures which The Writer constantly feels around her takes on a lesbian utopianist framework – a world without men, where women are free to be. It’s explored in a mesmerising dream-like sequence, accompanied by a sudden burst of sophisticated dance from Tiggy Jones and Emily Henson (the latter is also movement director) that perfectly matches and sets the tone. In this moment, we begin to understand the purpose behind an all-female-presenting cast.

Yet, we do not end on a hopeful note: Ofo, as The Writer’s girlfriend, delivers a sharp monologue, which subjects Martin’s character to the same verbal punches she’s been dealing out to all those around her. The ideal is revealed as only an ideal; there is no easy escape from relationships built on domination here.

The Writer is an utterly absorbing watch. There’s a supreme level of confidence to every aspect of this production, from the significant quantities of actual food (stage-managed perfectly by Ivana Clapperton, with no clean-ups needed) to the always on-point sound cues (by sound designer Joshua Robey), which carry notable symbolic weight. The actors, meanwhile, superbly contain the destabilising influence of the play’s metatheatrical elements in their fascinating, multilayered performances. Fennec Fox Productions have created something very special here: watch The Writer, and you will see the most challenging, vivid, extraordinary production I’ve witnessed this year.


[The Writer, staged by Fennec Fox Productions is running at the Michael Pilch Studio, 11-14 June]