Australian playwright Rebecca Sgouros’ play WHAT OF IT play is described as a gender-flip, explosive, and energetic comedy drama portraying toxic femininity a its finest.
Everything is a bit indistinct in this play, so one just has to try and fill in the gaps. Maybe I’ve got this right. We are somewhere in the vicinity of London, the three young women are rough and ready working class with a ton of energy, a lot of swagger, they have their own dance routines, and they spend a lot of time at the local pub.
In the film BETTER MAN singer Robbie Williams portrays himself as a monkey, albeit a performing monkey. The three women in WHAT OF IT see themselves as dogs.
They hunt in a pack. The top dog spies a young woman wearing a pair of shoes she likes. She gets the youngest dog to assault the woman and take off with pair of shoes, which she succeeds in doing. The assault is brutal, which is par for the curse. The problem is that the middle dog works out that she know the woman and feels bad about it. There’s tension in the group. Top dog works out what to do. She gets out a ‘magic’ drugs. Distressed middle dog obediently sits down before her and the pill is put in her mouth. It is then business as usual. So what if an assault has happened. As per the play’s title; what of it.
The hierarchy extends to sexual identity as well. Top dog is always getting shagged, middle dog can always get it, but the youngest dog hasn’t got shagged yet. What happened to clit power? They have a debate about it. Why hasn’t she been able to get shagged? Is it her fault? They kind of settle the debate by agreeing that nothing can happen until a guy wants to shag her. In the meantime,
They are not a classy bunch. It wasn’t great spending time with them, in fact it was very confronting, within the confines of the tiny Old Fitz theatre.
We are used to seeing the ugliness of toxic masculinity on stage on many occasions. Where was the playwright going with this? Is she saying that the way some women are going, that they could become as equally as toxic as men? That’s my take on it.
The cast of three, who gave their all, were Courtney Cavallaro, Rebecca Sgouros and Emma Wright.
Sgouros was a triple threat of a different kind in this production; being the writer, one of the performers, and the show’s producer. The stage manager was Sasha Byk Giroux, lighting designer Luna Ng, production support was Bella Sham and Megan Heferen.
Rebecca Sgouros’ WHAT OF IT is only playing a short season as the late show at the Old Fitz theatre between June 10 and June 15, 2025
