Review: She Wolf
She Wolf is a one-woman play on the corrosive effects of living in an unfettered, free-market capitalist society that is imbued with unrelenting masculinist tendencies. The protagonist works hard in an office when an opportunity for promotion presents itself. Being the best in her rank, and well placed for elevation, she applies for the position only to be passed over in favour of an incompetent male candidate who also happens to be related to one of the bosses.
What happens next is a salutary lesson on the consequences of so blatantly subverting the mirage of meritocracy.
Isla Cowan’s performance is a tour-de-force. We first meet her protagonist at the zoo. The clever conceit here is that the audience are the animals and as she addresses us with her story, she forces us to look at ourselves. How deep is the coat of civilised veneer covering our beast within? How sealed is that skin? For the protagonist, it has already been breached…and may well be beyond repair. That’s why she’s here: to join us in the enclosed area because whatever is here, it is way more civilised than what is out there on the city streets. She watches us as we engage in typical animal behaviour. She understands us. We are not the beasts. We are the real unvarnished world in all its terrible splendour. There is no splendour to be found on the streets of Edinburgh.
They’re coming for her of course. Whatever she has done has to be corrected. Civilly. The play is executed to beautiful precision. And we, the caged animals, can only look on and grunt.
Whilst the inciting incident suggests the latest in a long list of incidents for it to be commensurate with such a response, the question that crossed my mind was: had she not been overlooked for promotion, had she been the token candidate, would she still be sitting here before us today? Or would all instead be fine? That’s a complicated point as it raises all sorts of questions about personal compliance and threshold levels: un-breached, we’ll go along with societal norms for personal gain. Introducing the element of nepotism complicates the central argument (that women are regularly and repeatedly overlooked in favour of men) since nepotism crosses the gender divide in complex ways.
These are; however, small points. She Wolf reminds us that however comfortable we are, there are those for whom the system does not work but will continue to comply anyway. We prefer it that way. Safe in the knowledge we can post our outrage on social media, or roll our eyes over a glass of Rioja in a salubrious drinking establishment knowing that nothing will ever actually change. She Wolf implores us to reconsider.
She Wolf ran Aug 18 - 28 at Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh.