Review: FLUSH, EdFringe

Written by April Hope Miller and directed by Merle Wheldon, Launch Box Productions’ play FLUSH is set entirely in the bathroom of a Shoreditch club where it navigates the highs and the perils of the female experience. With a shockingly delightfully cast and near beat-perfect script, this is a play certainly not to be missed. The performance tracks a whole myriad of characters, played interchangeably by the talented cast, and details teenage drama, love, career spirals, motherhood, terrible dates, even more terrible decisions, and the fatigue of growing up.

The play hinges on Billie, played by Jazz Jenkins, who haunts the bathroom throughout the entire performance. While at first I found myself unconvinced by Jenkins’ stylistic choices, my opinion was changed by the end of the show. Her delivery of the character is raw, passionate, and terrifyingly believable. Audiences are right there with her every minute she’s onstage; all you know is that she’s lonely and scared, and yet still trying to make a valiant effort to connect with every woman who enters the bathroom. We are as alone and confused as she is, which is a real credit to the writing of the show.

Each individual performance is stunning and captivatingly believable. Writer, performer, and producer April Hope Miller is hilarious and touching; Miya Ocego is bold and unrelenting; Joanna Strafford is sweet and playfully naïve, while Ayesha Griffiths is daring and comfortably comedic.

The set design is simplistic; three exposed toilet cubicles, their walls littered with exactly the type of handwritten things you’d find in any women’s bathroom in a club. The costuming is great, working well to easily differentiate the characters by age. Only the tiniest of skirts for the teenagers, while the thirty-something women are more conservative, disbelieving that they, too, once dressed so scantily in another time and life.

Despite the staggering number of characters, the play still manages to add depth to each. Audiences are offered a glimpse into both the similarities and the differences between the women; the underage teen who at first appears utterly self-absorbed, grows increasingly frustrated when she tries and fails to record herself performing the Charli XCX ‘Apple’ dance trend. It works very authentically as a commentary on the self-critical nature of youth, and particularly of the camera-conscious Gen Z. The thirty-something bridesmaid is forced to confront her disordered eating which is almost as old as she is. Being a woman transcends all else; age included.

FLUSH manages to communicate a so often shared experience of girl and womanhood; it exists at the crux of harsh reality and a collective understanding of what it means to be a woman. How are we to navigate fun and safety? Why do we travel like pack animals? Why would we rather flock to women we don’t know – because that’s safer than being left unaccompanied with strange men? FLUSH is a summation of the timelessness of the feminine experience; all fun and games until you’re cornered with the reality of what it means to be a woman of any age, of any race, of any faith.

Written by: April Hope Miller
Directed by: Merle Wheldon

FLUSH has completed its run at EdFringe.