Review: The Virgins, Soho Theatre

The Virgins is a new play about a group of teenage friends, Chloe (Anushka Chakravarti), Phoebe (Molly Hewitt-Richards) and Jess (Ella Bruccoleri), preparing for a special night out: this is the evening they will go to a club and have their first sexual experience. The intimate relationships that young women experience as they share make up, dress up and talk through their insecurities is beautifully observed by writer Miriam Battye and is touching and funny. 

To get into the club they have invited along a sexually experienced girl from the year above, Anya (Zoë Armer). At the same time Choe’s brother Joel (Ragevan Vasan), also a virgin, is entertaining an older, more confident friend Mel (Alec Boaden). The play revolves around those in the know, educating the others. It rings true to life, and calls to mind the stressful attempts young people experience trying to navigate ever changing cliques as they move towards an understanding of who they are and who they want to be.

The stage is divided in two with the group of girls getting ready in a bathroom, a pair of boys gaming in a living room, and a hallway between. Rosie Elnile‘s set design feels really authentic. The focus of the action shifts between the areas. Time passing is marked by darkness and long blasts of distractingly loud classical music, which adds dramatic tension to the banal proclamations of the characters but seems out of place.

Mel and Anya cause the others to question their motivations, desires and their relationships.  But the play also addresses the non-virgins’ ambiguous feelings about sex. While aware of the allure and sense of superiority of being sexually active, neither of them equate sex with love, which reveals the issue at the heart of the play: is your virginity a hurdle to get over as quickly and painlessly as possible, or should it be an expression of a deeper relationship?

While the interplay with the girls is painfully and hilariously accurate, the relationship between the boys, Joel and Mel, is lacking. It’s never clear why they are friends, or even why Mel is at the flat that night at all. I would have liked to see the same testing and reevaluation of friendships between the boys as seen with the girls but it never materialises.

Hewitt-Richards as Phoebe is the stand out performance, and many of her lines set off roars of laughter in the audience. She tenderly portrays the tensions in the teenage psyche as it fluctuates between mock self-confidence and crushing insecurity. Bruccoleri as Jess should also get a mention as the lifelong friend of Chloe who risks getting elbowed out of the way for sassy, self-confident Anya.

While the play comes to an abrupt and rather awkward end, it has value for the journey it takes to get there. The highly entertaining first half will have you laughing out loud. The second is a more confusing mish-mash of sincerity and morality. But The Virgins is well worth a watch and will fill you with compassion for the tenderness and trauma of life as a teenager.

Written by Miriam Battye
Directed by Jaz Woodcock-Stewart
Set and Costume Designed by Rosie Elnile

The Virgins plays at Soho Theatre until Saturday 7 March.