Grotty is the study of the sexual mores of lesbian London seen through the eyes of Rigby (played by playwright Izzy Tennyson). Rigby has her work cut out juggling romantic liaisons, maintaining friendships with the more hip and cooler lesbians as well as her job as an intern. We follow her on her Everyman style quest through what we are told is the goldfish bowl of the lesbian scene (even in a city so big as London).
The show opens with the character Witch (a role executed with a delightfully icy contempt by Grace Chilton) confronting her ex-girlfriend Toad (performed with winning vitality by Rebekah Hinds) about whether she is sleeping with Rigby – a mutual acquaintance. Rigby herself appears and we see she has a bizarre physicality with her hunched and jerky movements, and indeed she tells us later she was seen as unusual and got bullied at school.
Tennyson delivers her lines in an incredibly fast but imprecise way with many crucial words particularly at the end of sentences being mangled and lost. Her voice lacks a variety of pitch and her focus constantly shifts, bouncing randomly around the auditorium, and she seems unable to hold the gaze of the audience. The power and command of the stage by the other actors leaves Tennyson behind and they actually seem to be inhabiting a completely different play.
The piece itself does have something to say though and airs a rarely heard perspective about the attitudes of lesbians to gay men. One funny moment when the friends are sitting around all aggressive and dressed in black in their Soho cellar bar shout at the ceiling to the gay boys to keep the noise down as they party wildly on the floor above. The whole play roots the action very nicely in Soho but more often in Dalston reflecting the shifting center of gravity of the London scene.
The set is simple – a polished floor and metallic tiles on the wall give a suitably seedy luster and the use of seating cubes in the central area is flexible & effective – sometimes a chair, a bed, or a nightclub’s dance podium.
Finally, we watch as a psychologist challenges Rigby on her motives. We come to understand she was out getting drunk when her mother died – and some of the issues that drove her to this dark place are revealed – perhaps now there can be some sort of redemption.
Grotty examines the kind of life the LGBTQ community makes for itself. Is it human nature to replace hard-won sexual freedom with a prison of a social convention of our own making? As Oscar Wilde said, “We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
Grotty ☆☆ directed by Hannah Hauer-King
The Bunker https://www.bunkertheatre.com
Until May 26th
Reviewed by JONNY WARD London Correspondent QUEERGURU