There is something special about Airswimming which is quite hard to
describe. The running time of 110 minutes without interval is ambitious. The
lighting is dim and suggests the shift of characters with a discreet variation of
cold and warm shades. The set never changes. Two of the side walls are covered by
a powder blue curtain and against the other two are aligned the audience seats.
In the middle of the room is a white bathtub, two green chairs and three metal
buckets. Very little actually happens on stage, the acting isn’t physically
challenging and the two women spend most of the time sat or standing still. Nonetheless,
I couldn’t take my eyes off them and the end of the performance arrived sooner
than I thought.
It’s the year 1926 when
Persephone (Lily Newbury-Freeman) is identified as a ‘moral imbecile’ and admitted
into a mental institution. Dora (Emma Playfair) has already been there two
years. They only spend an hour a day in the same room, whilst they are both in
polishing duty, and through their conversation we learn about their guilt. Dora
is there because her preference for male clothes and uniforms made her be seen
as a witch. Persephone has been taken to the asylum by her own father, following
an extramarital pregnancy. Both women will be finally released in the ’70, abandoned
to a state of mental fragility and utterly unprepared to face a modern world
that had changed so much in fifty years.
Charlotte Jones first play
reflects the bitter reality of many women victims of the ‘1913 Mental
Deficiency Act’, which offhandedly branded as a ‘moral imbecile’ whoever displayed
a ‘mental weakness coupled with strong, vicious or criminal propensities, and
on whom punishment has little or no deterrent effect’. In other terms, within
the category was included whoever’s behaviour fell short of societal expectations
and manifested inappropriate behaviours like relationships outside of wedlock or
homosexual tendencies, to name just a few.
In her 1997 work, Jones finally
gives these women a voice. Their most private feelings are acknowledged and
presented to the public with striking simplicity. ‘Airswimming’ – as in wondering
off with one’s imagination – is the only trick that helps to maintain sanity
and come to terms with loss of freedom, degrading
The play is slow paced but well
balanced. The lines refer to facts, dates, dreams and memories that drip
relentlessly like drops of water in a Chinese torture. In addition, the
claustrophobic tunnel of The Vaults theatre gives a sense of oppression that well
suits the underlying sensation of unfair judgement.
What ultimately makes Airswimming so unique must be its
intrinsic energy, drenched with all the lost hopes and lives of thousands of real
women who have been victim of mere prejudice.
Review by Marianna Meloni
Rating: ★★★★
