Entertaining, Wild, Raunchy, Girls on Stage

By Lilian Harrington

Production:    Scenes with Girls

Writer:            Miriam Battye

Director:         Ruby Sanders

Company:      Salad Days Collective

  Location:      Diane Cilento Studio, Queensland Theatre Company. 78 Montague Rd. South Brisbane.

Season:           Sept 4-19 Wed- Fridays, 7:30pm.  

Bookings:       Try booking / Ph:1800 355 528

An exciting new “Gen Z” production has opened at the Diane Cilento Studio, Q.T.C. that features important relationships young women share together, and demonstrates their camaraderie, personal contact and bonding with other females they live with.

This special relationship helps them to express their opinions honestly, and allows them to put things into a better perspective. So, it was no surprise that the audience were treated to high energy and impact as Salad Days Collective, embraced this play with a whoop and a scream, when they opened at the Diane Cilento Studio, Q.T.C. DOOR 3 Program. Scenes With Girls, is written by British writer Miriam Battye, and produced by Salad Days Collective, under the direction of Ruby Sanders, as part of the DOOR 3 program, at Q.T.C., where every year three emerging, independent, companies are selected on merit and mentored, as they prepare their program under the State Company’s umbrella.

Miriam Battye’s play questions the relationships between young women in share houses. She looks at the nature of these relationships and the influence they have long term. Battye, who hails from Manchester, U.K, wrote Scenes With Girls in 2020; she focuses on a part of the young women’s journey, creating strong images and using adult themes. She takes a keen look at women: their fast dialogue, coarse language, their raw habits, strong sexual references, their views on their love life with males, emotional fragility, manipulation, violence, peculiar behaviors when with other females; she exposes situations where they not only “decenter men” with their wit and actions, but through living together and sharing a collective reverie, while still living separate lives. She shows the special bond and platonic love, that develops into a lasting sisterhood.

In order to bring this performance together, director Ruby Sanders, used a system of collaboration with this actors’ collective, to develop and create a commanding performance that sent a positive message out to the audience. This three-hander was led by Tosh, (Jasmine Prasser) Lou, (Hannah Wood), and Fran (Georgina Sawyer). The actors all showed a high degree of confidence, vitality, energy and close team work, as they told their stories in a very emphatic and visual format, supported by strong sound and strobe lighting effects from the Creative Team, led by S.M./ P. C. Jess Johnson, which complimented the action; the innovative set design by Laurent Milton, showed originality and initiative; the design allowed for different levels of performance and resulted in some interesting staging effects.

From the beginning, the young adult audience were fully engaged and responded enthusiastically as the scene developed. Stand out performances were seen from Lou (Hannah Ward), who portrayed a confidence and sincerity and demonstrated a sensitivity in her performance as the housemate who showed that she was grounded in some areas, but not in her relationships with men. In contrast, her team mate, Tosh (Jasmine Prasser), showed some instability in her relationships, as the pressures of not making stable friendships with others, such as males, or not being comfortable with other “friends” who came to visit i.e. Fran (Georgina Sawyer), could be quite destabilizing for her. This program makes a strong statement about young women’s relationships when  living together. It forms an important part of the 2026 DOOR 3 Program at Q.T.C. and it is very entertaining.