REVIEW: PASS IT ON by the Yellow Coat Theatre Company Collective at Theatre503 1 December 2022

‘Authentic stories from powerful women’s voices’ ★★★★★

In Pass It On, 10 women perform monologues, each about five minutes long, on a variety of topics: love, sex, one-night stands, consent, body image, family secrets, motherhood. Whilst some of these do feel like well-trodden paths, the final message and overall feeling left was one of absolute positivity and liberation.

It must be said that every performer and every monologue was excellent. As each piece is so short, it is essential that we understand our new speaker and their world within seconds. Some used minimal props – a chair, a suitcase – and there is a huge skill in immersing us in a new world after just a few seconds of speaking.

A theme which ran through many of the speeches was judgement. The judgement against a new mother from the other perfect mums in the park; the worry about being body shamed when changing at a swimming pool; the everyday pressures on so many women to perform.

A hard-hitting story concerned a university student, played by Katie Walker-Cook, battling with how to tell a man that she isn’t ready to sleep with him: the societal pressure, the worry about his reaction, the feeling that she would be letting him down in some way. We follow them from a club, to when they kiss in the street, with the man suddenly becoming more forceful. The rest of the way back to his student halls, our speaker worries about she can tell him she has changed her mind. She sees a ‘consent’ poster displayed in the corridor, the language of which hugely simplifies the action of saying ‘no’ to a prospective partner. Whilst the message of the poster is a fundamental necessity, the scene offered a great exploration of the difficulty of articulating this message in real life. 

Another concerned a mother revealing to her daughter that she never loved her father and had been repressing her homosexuality. The delivery of this was exceptional: with some minimal props of a table and chair, a mug of tea, some old photos, and we are transported into the mother’s front room, sifting through the markers of a marriage now that the father has died. It was a simple piece yet carried a huge amount of emotional weight.

Beca Barton, the performer of the final monologue, was outstanding: the story was about a woman who had been ostracised due to her weight as a child, but had found liberation, not to mention sexual freedom, at uni. Almost an inverse of the ‘consent’ story, here was a woman totally confident and in control. She breaks up with a partner who decides he wants to lose weight, and that she should do the same. Once he’s slimmed down, he tries to get back with her. She thinks about it, on the condition that he eats a whole chocolate cake in one go. This was such a funny, empowering story on which to end the night, the actor revelled in her performance, and her entirely naturalistic and relaxed delivery was at once hilarious and utterly convincing.  

The majority of these monologues ended with the speaker growing, developing, changing to become stronger. How wonderful to see such positive representations of women on stage.

PASS IT ON
Theatre503 29 November – 3 December 2022
Various Writers from the Yellow Coat Theatre Company Collective 
https://theatre503.com/whats-on/pass-it-on/

The Plays performed on 1 December:

The Beautiful Game is written and performed by Fiona White and directed by Caron Kehoe.

The Kiss is written and performed by Sarah Collins-Walters and directed by Bettina Paris.

Useless Metaphors is written by Joanna Hagan, performed by Nieve Hearity and directed by Emily Susanne Lloyd.

Wild Swimming is written by Emma White, performed by Ellie-Rose Fowler and directed by Afton Aitkenhead.

Pram Talk is written by Rosanna Jahangard, performed by Grace MacDougall and directed by Tania Black.

Potholing is written by Ayşe Evans, performed by Emma James and directed by AK Golding.

Semi-Detached is written by Barbara Williams, performed by Laura Penneycard and directed by Belle Bao.

Home Run is written and performed by Katie Walker-Cook and directed by Ella Murdoch.

Sunken Secrets is written by Hannah Petch, performed by Lauren Page and directed by Ellie rose Amit.

Let Him Eat Cake was written by Caitlin Magnall-Kearns, performed by Beca Barton and directed by beth drury.

Writers from the Yellow Coat Theatre Company Collective