Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Many a story finishes with a wedding. Chris Bush\u2019s epic, moving new play starts with one \u2014 a joyous affair between Jo and Harry, who everyone agrees were made for each other. But inside that union lie huge wells of uncertainty. Jo is troubled by the expectations of her as a woman \u2014 particularly to have a child. More fundamentally, Harry wants to transition into the woman she feels she has always been. What follows is a richly compassionate and thoughtful exploration of love, of what being a woman means and of the fascinating and strange nature of our bodies.It\u2019s an extremely topical and often contentious subject. But Bush describes the theatre as \u201ca machine for empathy\u201d and that is absolutely the driving principle for this show. Though not autobiographical, it draws on her own experience of transitioning. It\u2019s also alert and sympathetic to the complex emotions of everyone involved. And this isn\u2019t a play about an issue: it\u2019s about lived experience.So we see how hard it is for Harry, a mild-mannered marine biologist, simply to conduct her life. Her boss, being \u201chelpful\u201d, sidelines her on public-facing engagements and suggests she uses the toilet in a different facility. Her mother, though supportive, can\u2019t understand why Harry can\u2019t just use her old passport to travel to a big family wedding and advises wearing an old suit to avoid being \u201ca distraction\u201d. But equally, we see the struggle for her mother to comprehend fully this change in her child.Jo, meanwhile, has her own restless relationship with her body and her life. When the two split, she talks of becoming \u201cunplugged\u201d and heads off on the Inca Trail. So when her new partner, Gabby, with whom she falls passionately in love, pressurises her to have a baby, she feels torn. They are surrounded by a chorus of women who double up as narrators and multiple characters, and deliver Jennifer Whyte\u2019s dreamy, soulful songs that punctuate the action.The second half of the play takes a wild swing into fantasy: Harry\u2019s experience fuses with a story about a mermaid trying to adapt to land in a historical England while Jo\u2019s pregnancy is depicted in a futuristic tale about a cyborg mother. It\u2019s a risky shift into allegory, but it largely pays off, finding a pungent theatrical language to express the two characters\u2019 disorientation as their bodies change, and their contrasting but profound sense of alienation.It doesn\u2019t all work. Sometimes characters feel schematic, their dialogue too clearly designed to expand the discussion. But it\u2019s carried with care and warmth by a fine ensemble in Ann Yee\u2019s fluid staging. Amanda Wilkin is great as the effervescent Gabby, as is Jackie Clune as Harry\u2019s hand-wringing mother. At the centre, Jade Anouka as Jo and Fizz Sinclair as Harry are superb, Anouka\u2019s firecracker energy and impulsiveness contrasting with Sinclair\u2019s gentle, reflective dignity. And, at base, this beautiful, humane play is about feeling like an outsider, whoever you are, and yearning for acceptance.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606To March 15, almeida.co.uk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Many a story finishes with a wedding. Chris Bush\u2019s epic, moving new play starts with one \u2014 a joyous affair between Jo and Harry, who everyone<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220949,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220947\/revisions\/220949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}