‘Ugly Mugs’, written and starring Peta Brady, is a gritty
engaging play that deals with more than a murdered sex worker and a teenage
girl. It is a play that delves into the sexualisation of girls and of the men around
them, whose power is to brutalise or they are paralysed by it. In many ways,
this play is more about the men but it is their interaction with the women that
define them. It also deals with the way women are targeted and blamed for the
actions of men. It’s a touch of Adam and Eve in the most sinful of
circumstances, if you will.
‘Ugly Mugs’ is streetwise and current and Brady’s
sophisticated understanding of her characters, especially after years of
working as an outreach worker as well as actor, has transferred beautifully
into a play that understands the ugliness of desperation pushed to its limits,
invisible to justice and fighting for any power within its grasp.
Director Marion Potts has allowed Brady and a solid ensemble
of actors (Steve Le Marquand, Sara West and Harry Boland) to connect with this
play, flowing effortlessly from the voices and interaction of the dead with
those who seek to hear them and action as it unfolds, retrospectively. ‘Ugly
Mugs’, originally a pamphlet written by sex workers and distributed amongst
them, is the catalogue of violent punters encountered by them with the
intention of trying to aid workers in recognising and avoiding the dangers in a
world where protection from legal and crime institutions was barely present. It
is a chance for the disempowered to rely on each other for support.
As doom and gloom as this sounds, there is a lovely weave of
humour, especially by Brady’s character, to relieve the tension. Resilient and
gutsy, Brady gives dimensions to this role so that we feel that this tragedy is
not just of one woman but representative of the many who have gone before her
and will continue to follow her and there is an inevitability to their plight
that makes us realise how immune we’ve become to what happens outside of our sanitised
and safe little worlds.
Michael Hankin’s stage design strips bear the niceties of
the space and leaves us front and centre with the gurney but it is what he does
with his costumes (even Brady’s hair was completely convincing) that create the
reality of these people and world without overstating the premise at all.
If I have a criticism of the play, it is the poetry of
dialogue for the son, played by Boland. The lyricism tends to work against the
play and even against the character at times and I found myself having to work
much harder to be engaged with his story. Or maybe the people who snuck into
the theatre at that point distracted me but it left me estranged from this new
subplot for a while.
The ending is also abrupt and I am left with questions in
regards to Boland’s character. Why does he keep silent? Does he blame himself so
that this punishment is his redemption? I’m not sure I completely believed the
arc of his character like I believed the others. But a good performance by
Boland and a terrific one from West kept these two in the frame and Le Marquand’s
ability to be both vulnerable and horrifying, in different roles, gave us the
light and shade we needed.
This is a very good play, made more so by the outstanding
performance of Brady. It’s well worth watching so catch it if you can.
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