Review: GUSH – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Billed as a “funny and frank exploration of the barriers that prevent women from owning their desires”, Jess Brodie’s professional playwriting debut, GUSH, is currently occupying Traverse 2, the more intimate of the bastion of new writing’s performance spaces.

A one-woman play brought to life by a sensational Jessica Hardwick, it tells the story of one imminent new mother, Ally’s, sexually-charged identity crisis. Still manifestly in love with her husband, and desperate to be the best mother possible, she still feels the clock ticking down to midnight on her chances of ever fully exploring her sexual identity. Cue surreptitious meetings with a glamorous female sex worker in a hotel in Cambuslang, far (but not far enough) from prying eyes.

A one-woman play brought to life by a sensational Jessica Hardwick, it tells the story of one imminent new mother, Ally’s, sexually-charged identity crisis.

Overall, it’s an interesting story well-told, if guilty of a little wish fulfilment in finding a less than miserable ending. However, before that, Hardwick takes the audience on a funny, insightful adventure, striding Becky Minto’s shiny white stage, whilst circumnavigating (and sometimes occupying) a central ‘bath’ filled with pink cushions. Part abstract shower enclosure, part womb, and somewhat vulval, it’s maybe a touch on the nose — but it’s still a space which invites action, and not static declaration.

Becky Hope Palmer keeps the tale ticking along at a fine pace, events gathering pace until they escape the narrator’s control — and making the judiciously dispensed moments of deep existential epiphany all the more arresting. Ok, so Brodie lets the show’s tail drag on a little too long in search of some place to bring the curtain down, but there’s plenty here to suggest a strong new voice.

You, like me, might think that Ally isn’t so much breaking through barriers as trying to have her cake and eat it, but the psychology rings true enough. After all, human history isn’t short of individuals who made self-destructive choices due to their libidos, and the stage has never been short of male characters making bad, phallus-led choices.

More successful than the ending, which GUSH struggles to decide on, is the creation of a living, breathing human being, complete with strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. Her hopes and fears as motherhood beckons, along with at least some degree of domestic invisibility, consistently drive her decisions and make her the author of her own fate alongside a touch of inevitably bad luck.

You, like me, might think that Ally isn’t so much breaking through barriers as trying to have her cake and eat it, but the psychology rings true enough.

Ultimately, GUSH is of sufficient quality so that had it been included in this year’s Play, Pie & A Pint line-up, it wouldn’t have stood out for any negative reasons. It’s a highly competent one-act, one-person play. Yes, it’s elevated by Hardwick’s superb performance — her voice work is particularly first-class — but Brodie’s words give her ample fuel to consume. Perhaps in future work, this new playwright will find the confidence to follow her characters’ actions through to more truthful and potentially bitter outcomes, but with GUSH, she shows herself willing at least to put them on the path to self-engineered ruin.

This sort of new writing adventure is why the Traverse exists, and long may it continue to offer space to new voices. Let’s hope we hear Jess Brodie’s again on this, or another stage.

All Images: Traverse GUSH Production Photography – image by Mihaela Bodlovic