Freak

Georgie and Leah both want to be wanted. Georgie’s 30. She’s just started stripping and, with all eyes on her, she feels fantastic. Desirable. In control. Alive. Leah’s 15. She’s about to have sex for the first time and she’s panicking. She’s dissolved all her pubic hair and practised her cumface in the mirror. She feels like all eyes are on her.

Anna Jordan’s entwining monologues combine to ask what sexual empowerment looks like in this day and age. Is Georgie really in control when she submits to a stag party after hours, relaxing the no-touching rule as they play out a porno scenario? Have Leah’s sexual expectations been irreparably warped by an excessively porn-happy culture?

Jordan’s smart enough to dive into the difficult grey areas, those moments when empowerment tips into exploitation. For the most part, her writing’s brilliant – tight to its theme and potent in its details. Just occasionally she tips into a trickshot phrase and Freak steers towards too neat a resolution, as Leah and Georgie turn out to be related.

Where she lets herself down is as director. You can’t stage a play about women taking ownership of their bodies and require two actresses to gyrate sexily in skimpy costumes. Not only does it feel exploitative and, frankly, embarrassing, it’s also utterly unnecessary. Jordan’s words do the work on their own and two microphones are all they need. Instead, that one decision undermines the play’s purposes entirely, betraying both a complete lack of consideration or commitment to its cause. More’s the pity.