To She Or Not To She

Photograph: New Theatre

 

“Frailty thy name is woman?! Oh get stuffed, Will!” Emma Bentley, or joue le genre when

she's theatre-making, explores gender inequality in the acting industry in autobiographical

comedy To She Or Not To She - only partly fictionalised, she says. Appropriately, the journey begins as Bentley auditions to play The Prince of Denmark himself in the school

production of Hamlet. She isn't fazed by the group audition where we meet the first of

many characters; annoying boy who thinks he can act and that Bentley will be cast as

Ophelia because she’ll “look good drowned”, and an Irish drama teacher who just couldn't

stomach a female Hamlet. Bentley is energetic, witty and deeply perceptive, with clear

experience in voice, mime and physical theatre as she swiftly shifts from caricature to

caricature to heightened version of herself (perhaps all that amusing Alexander Technique

she showed us paid off after all). We follow her enthusiasm for Shakespeare and acting

through to drama school and then into what she discovers to be an industry riddled with

sexism and female objectification.

 

Bentley charms us from the onset; hilariously miming Olivier’s famous speeches with a

broom, dancing to her stereo and making full use of her bubble machine. She is now living

the life of an actor: working in a bar. Her description of the audition process and

impressions of drama lecturers are painfully familiar and accurate and, have us howling with laughter. We like her, so we too are frustrated when, after spending £24,000 on training and finally moving to London to share a house with four other drama-mad students (“has anyone else seen my complete works?!”), finding work as a female actor seems to be

harder - or at least less fulfilling - than that of a male. Bentley isn't offered auditions for

interesting parts like her boy flatmate who has the same careless, drunken agent: “it's just

a waiting game”. Well, Bentley isn't up for waiting around - she writes a solo show about

the lack of multidimensional female roles in film and theatre and takes it to the Edinburgh

Fringe instead.

 

Full force was not always realised due to the unfortunate blanks. They say every actor has

one, Wednesday was Bentley’s turn. Part way through, the monologue is in danger of

becoming self-indulgent, delving perhaps a little too deep into Bentley’s life offstage as we

find out about her unrequited love. However, we realise the relevance of these anecdotes

during the final scene when Bentley auditions for “a theatre on the Southbank which I’m

not going to mention as I do actually want to work there one day”. Echoes of her sexist

experiences cut into her delivery of Hamlet’s “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” as

she discovers new meaning in the speech of all speeches.

 

This show isn't all about Bentley; there is a particularly sobering scene in which we listen

to voice recordings of female actors describing their disturbing audition experiences in

which they underwent brutal sexism. There is an underlying sense of anger but this does

not become a feminist rampage of complaints; rather a proactive step toward a fairer,

gender-equal theatre industry as Bentley invites us girls to take to stages everywhere.