“I’ve seen all my friend’s wieners”
It feels only too right that an emerging theme at this year’s VAULT Festival is a brutally honest depiction of what it means to be a woman in this modern world. And whether it’s #MeToo or #TimesUp or both, the voices of the young, inspired theatremakers corralled under Waterloo are perfect for capturing that zeitgeist and giving it gloriously full expression.
Hitting the Wall Productions’ contribution to the debate is The Internet Was Made For Adults, exploring how the greater potential for ‘connection’ facilitated by the internet has had a disproportionate and disconcerting impact on how we all – but particularly young women – see love and sex. Meshing cabaret with theatre, this all-female team make a vibrant impact.
Centred around a group of four friends on a night that one of them is gearing up to perform, there’s a no-holds-barred approach to the presentation of female sexuality here. And as frank as it is, it works in generating a sense of honesty about the friendships here as they variously discuss casual sex, STDs, porn, chronic vulval pain as if these were subjects we see every day in theatres.
The bracing freshness of the subject matter takes The Internet… a long way, as does the wittiness of the original songs here. But there is also a hell of a lot stuffed into a short space of time (the curse of the festival slot…) which means there isn’t the best sense of flow about the piece, nor quite as much thoroughness as you begin to crave. Plenty of potential though.
