TW: SA
The room is dimly lit.
A woman stands on stage. Her name is Mary.
Mary is shaking.
A police officer stands in front of Mary. He knows her story.
Mary’s story is this:
Mary has been hurt. Mary has been assaulted. Mary has been attacked and she has been violated and she has been silenced. The system that was supposed to protect Mary has failed her.
Now, Mary is afraid.
The room goes black.
…
All the women in Lucy Kirkwood’s Maryland are named Mary. Each Mary has different experiences and a different identity – but she also has none of these, no identity, no experiences.
Because the point of Maryland is this:
Mary is not Mary.
…
Kirkwood’s play is not about Mary as a single character. Rather, Maryland is about every woman, and Mary is every woman.
Mary is the chorus of Furies who shout their sorrows and their rage and their terror in the play; she is the number, the statistic called out from the floor, she is the woman who is crying, she is the woman who is screaming, who is unheard and who is desperate – and most of all, Mary is the woman who is afraid.
Mary is a woman. Mary is afraid.
Mary is afraid, because Maryland is a play about fear. Every Mary in Kirkwood’s play is, in some way, afraid – anxious about the future, fearful of awkward silences, scared to walk the streets at night.
Maryland is a play about the fear women contend with daily, the fear that follows them everywhere – fear to walk five minutes down the road to get an ice cream from the shop, fear to go to sleep without triple checking the windows are locked, fear to be alone at night.
…
Kirkwood’s play is a polemic against the systemic injustices of modern society that allow the continuation of gendered violence. Written shortly after the brutal killings of two women in London, Kirkwood’s play is justifiably angry. She calls for action to be taken against the normalisation of systemic misogyny and the apparent ambivalence with which institutions such as the police force in this play treat women’s safety.
It’s a confronting play, but, because of this, an important one. It’s difficult to imagine that many people who saw the play tonight didn’t leave feeling somehow affected or even, possibly, transformed by Kirkwood’s work.
The playwright forces us to face uncomfortable truths about ourselves and our society head on – the casualness with which women’s experiences are minimised, the double standards that dominate our interactions with and understanding of the world, the degree to which sexism is entrenched in our society.
Maryland’s ability to so profoundly move audiences is due at least in part to the breathtaking performances by the actors involved in the play. The roles of the two main Marys are played with raw emotion that leaves audiences shaken, while the police officers are genuinely unsettling.
The cast of UOW Theatre students convey the brutality of the play with authenticity, and their performances are truly to be commended. Maryland leaves audiences disturbed, and with a chilling awareness of just what it means to be a woman in today’s world, which is this:
Mary is afraid.
Mary is a woman. Mary is every woman. And Mary is afraid.
The Tert will be reviewing more shows this semester. Stay tuned!