Girl X looks at the case of 11-year old Maggie Mills who has severe cerebral palsy and the mental age of a 5-month old infant. Her condition will not improve and her mother believes that the physical changes that accompany adolescence will be detrimental to her daughter’s wellbeing. So, to spare her the onset of menstruation, Mrs Mills has requested that surgeons remove her daughter’s womb. Read more …
The doctors have accepted Mrs Mills’ argument that this controversial surgery will improve Maggie’s quality of life and have sought legal approval to carry out the procedure.
In Girl X the Mills case is examined from the point of view of the onlookers, made up of a Greek chorus that asks what could or should happen next. Performer and disabled rights activist Robert Softley challenges this chorus, examining the Mills case and related ethical issues.
Girl X began its journey when Robert Softley approached the National Theatre of Scotland with a series of materials that he wanted to see explored on stage. The Company partnered him with writer and director Pol Heyvaert, leading to a period of research followed by a week’s intensive exploration with performance students attending the National Theatre of Scotland’s Diaspora in 2008. A further research period and a week of practical development were then undertaken with dramaturg Bart Capelle before rehearsals began. These stages of development led to Girl X becoming part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s repertoire.
The conflicting and contradictory viewpoints create the opposite of agitprop and, in its way, something more politically radical, opening up a complex, unsettling debate that does not stop at the curtain call.
If it is to make a difference, Girl X probably needs to go further. But as a conversation piece it’s a start.
For anyone who loves the cut and thrust of debate, who is prepared to accept complexity instead of certainty and who is willing to consider a subject usually politely ignored, Girl X is a compelling piece of theatre.
Unsettling, contradictory, and often highly comic, this is an invigorating, mentally challenging, original piece of work that offers no easy answers, but makes sure that the questions raised stay with you long after you’ve left the theatre.
There are moments, though, when in classic Pol Heyvaert style, this show memorably strips the mask from our society, to reveal the mean-minded ugliness of the attitudes that underpin much of our popular culture.
The free-flowing discussion is by turns funny, angry, challenging, unsettling and, ultimately, inconclusive. Worthy? Yes. Dull? No.
I find myself deeply disappointed. Despite the best efforts of the director, Softley and dramaturg Bart Capelle, there is very little going on in Girl X which could be described as genuinely dramatic.
In the end, Softley does not and cannot, determine whether Girl X’s parents were right or wrong, but his articulate anguish at how society treats its most vulnerable gives the audience a lot to think about.
As with any ongoing debate this piece is left open-ended, but it succeeds in highlighting the complex nature of issues surrounding disability sexuality and wider disability rights in a way that is rarely expressed so directly in theatre.
Girl X is a revealing discussion of the issues facing the carers of severely disabled children. But it's a debate that fails to develop into anything bigger.
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Dundee Rep Theatre, Dundee from Saturday March 12, 2011. More info: www.dundeereptheatre.co.uk
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Friday March 4, 2011, until Saturday March 12, 2011. More info: www.traverse.co.uk
Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow from Wednesday March 16, 2011, until Saturday March 19, 2011. More info: www.citz.co.uk
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness from Tuesday April 19, 2011, until Wednesday April 20, 2011. More info: www.eden-court.co.uk