Just The Tonic at The Caves
Aug 20-30
(11:40)
Solo shows are one of the most ancient forms of storytelling we know. The singular epic poets of the Mycenaean palaces, & before them the singers of Gilgamesh, somehow managed to conjure entire metaverses teeming with characters, each with their own personalities, voices & actions. In those days, long before the Greek innovations of ensemble theatre, this was how stories were told.
Roll on to the modern age & we can see casts of hundreds strutting about the stage in ensemble productions of Les Misérables, for example. The thing is, tho’, a story is a story – & that’s the main thing. If the teller can tell it well, that is all we need. And 10A: The Fitting Room is not simply a story told well by Eliza Allen – it is a story told wonderfully. From her central character Liz, thro’ her work colleagues to the walk-on extras who become her customers, Eliza brings everyone & everything to life with consummate mastery.
Eliza Allen’s 10A: The Fitting Room is a Fringe debut rooted firmly in the writer-performer’s own experience of spending eight years working as a professional bra fitter. An Australian actor & performer, Allen brings that unusual workplace to the stage through Liz, a self-declared “raging feminist” whose life revolves around helping women find the right fit – from first bras to nursing bras – until she unexpectedly finds herself trapped in an abusive relationship. There’s a deliciously uncomfortable irony at the heart of it: a woman who has spent years helping other women find their shape suddenly has to work out where, exactly, she herself fits.
“I have the utmost respect for men when they’re not acting like dicks.”
The fitting room becomes a wonderfully apt little female microcosm – an intimate, exclusively female space where women arrive carrying insecurities, expectations, stories & bodies, & often leave having revealed rather more than they intended. Allen uses this setting to explore feminism, womanhood, vulnerability, domestic abuse & the sometimes enormous gap between what we believe about ourselves & what actually happens to us. The subject matter is undoubtedly heavy, but Allen approaches it with a sharp comic eye, naturally finding plenty of opportunities to get her “iden-titty” into the joke.
As a man, I’ve always felt a bit overawed by bras & their mysterious mechanics – the unfastening of which, in certain scenarios, sometimes goes smoothly, more oftener not. Yet by ten to twelve yesterday morning I was completely relaxed in their company, so expertly does Eliza perform her role as Liz, a bra-seller in some Brisbane department store.
Liz is an amazing performer. Her performing anima really grips you, & her uber-articulation never lets you go. From twerking at work, thro’ breast reductions, to telling the ladies to “free the nip & slay the day,” it’s a real eye-opener into a world I never knew existed – the place where ladies of a certain age go to reclaim the frontage of their teenage years, with well-built wonder-bras transforming “donkey testicles” into works of art.
We also get Liz’s work colleagues, including Amethyst, who at one point gets drunk on her alcoholic chocolates. Amethyst, by the way, has a literal ghost for a boyfriend, a strange little quirk in the fabric of the show which actually works rather well. It’s another example of Allen’s ability to populate this tiny world with characters who feel fully formed, even when they appear only briefly.
“I swapped my boyfriend for a restraining order.”
The core of the show, tho’, is Liz’s innate & powerful feminism & its elongated fight with falling in love with a clear sociopathic, body-shaming control freak. While she is repeating to her friends how lovely & caring her boyfriend is, they are noticing, degree by degree, how she is starting to dress more plainly – the first whispers of the scream of agony that comes from going out with a psychopathic narcissist.
This section is full of accurate & keen observation, particularly in its depiction of how abuse victims can begin attaching their self-worth to the approval of another person. Is The Fitting Room a cathartic, mimetic release of the negativity Eliza experienced in real life? Perhaps. If it isn’t, she must have done her research exceptionally well, because it all feels remarkably genuine.
And then, as we approach the end of this perfectly formed 45 minutes, we hear the phrase “shining brighter just to spite them,” before Liz draws everything together in a breathless, uplifting conclusion.
I’ve never had so much fun with bras!
Damo
