Vive La Révolution: Director Janice Muller On The Reality Of Modern Feminism

20 June 2017 | 4:05 pm | Maxim Boon

"It's asking us to face a big question - what if feminism can't really achieve anything?"

In the final moments of the third American presidential debate - an evening of political tit for tat in which Donald Trump had repeatedly sniffed, glowered and puffed himself up in an unsuccessful attempt to unsettle his opponent, Hilary Clinton - the easily outperformed future Prez shook his head and muttered a last ditch put-down. In his trademark clueless style, Trump had unwittingly created a rallying cry behind which a movement of feminist defiance would mobilise. Thus was born the "Nasty Women."

But, while the cause may have been gifted a subversive new identity, the fight for women's rights was far from new. From the Nasty Women to the second-wave feminists, the bra burners of the '60s to the suffragettes, and so on, back and back, to the great historical icons of female agency, Elizabeth I, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra - the struggle for female equality in a male dominated world has been an ever-present part of human civilisation.

Indeed, British playwright Alice Birch's unflinching, kaleidoscopic study of contemporary womanhood, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. points out how the patriarchal status quo is woven into the very fabric of our language. For example, in the way sexual acts are almost exclusively skewed towards the male experience. Screwed. Nailed. Penetrated.

"There's nothing particularly new about what this play is saying. These are issues that are and have been continually present," observes director Janice Muller, who has been preparing a new production of Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. for Malthouse Theatre. "You can't believe how old these arguments really are. I'm nearly 50, so to me, it feels like these are questions that have been sitting there since I came into womanhood. But I don't think this play is trying to open up a whole lot of new ideas - what's exciting about it is the energy of writing. It's got the power to really make you think."

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"It's asking us to face a big question - what if feminism can't really achieve anything?"

In fact, thought itself becomes Birch's most provocative tool in Revolt. Various scenarios are introduced in a succession of disconnected vignettes, galvanised by the idee fixe of "revolution." Frissons of structural elan, echoing the restless invention of Caryl Churchill, butt up against moments of stark grit, evoking the irreverent fury of Sarah Kane. Each scene plays out like a PSA for a radical feminist manifesto, much like the politically proactive, quietly elating theatre of Nic Green, while Birch's extraordinary command of language acts as a tribute to the countless women whose academic and creative talents have been dismissed and rejected purely due to the circumstance of their gender. The full effect operates beyond the literal - what this play depicts is a means to a conceptual end, a springboard for a viewer's own individual conclusions, pondered long after the final curtain.  

And yet, with such a dense tangle of cultural, contextual, historical and psychological threads wound tightly around the feminist philosophy, it would be a near impossible challenge to unknot all this topic's complexities in a single piece of theatre. Birch's solution is to view some of the injustices and hypocrisies of female inequality through the lens of her personal experience. "There are, of course, things that this play doesn't address. It's written from the perspective of a young British woman, and it feels very much like its speaking to a first-world, middle-class theatre audience. That's not to diminish anything about this play - it's clear that Alice knows exactly what she's doing. She's very politically aware, and she understands that there is an element of first-world privilege about feminism," Muller explains.

It’s these shifting shades of grey – an acknowledgement that while the fight may be just, the purest, most inflexible form of a political argument can oftentimes exist outside of the humdrum reality of the practical world – that makes Birch’s play such a valuable piece of theatre, Muller suggests. In a society built on political and social compromise, can there truly be any sacred cows? Ultimately, there is no definitive answer. “This material speaks to me personally, so of course I feel very invested in it. But I don’t feel like it’s 'important' in the sense of delivering a message. I really try not to. I hate that kind of theatre, actually," Muller reveals. "I don’t want anyone’s conclusion to be 'wrong', or for this play to have a fixed agenda. I think it's important to keep questioning what you should have to be accommodating of, and what you should still be fighting for every day. Because it's different for everyone."

Birch's "disobedient" exploration of womanhood is intentionally open to interpretation, but if the era of Trump and the Nasty Women has indeed given Revolt an extra injection of zeitgeist relevance, its closest connection is arguably found in its playful, often mischievous sense of humour. Birch's text is brimming with comedic accents, as its truisms are superimposed with satire - something which has become the new normal in a Presidency that is as silly as it is scary.

This undercurrent of comedy allows Birch to make her most daring suggestion, Muller notes. "One of the ideas in this play is that there is no realistic possibility of equality in our current world. It's asking us to face a big question - what if feminism can't really achieve anything? What if we need to start again from scratch? It's a ridiculously huge proposition that's wrapped up in a play that is incredibly fun and fast-paced. That's one of the things that makes it so effective. It moves you through so much in such a short amount of time you can't help but feel incredibly stimulated."

Malthouse Theatre presents Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. till July 9.