The light travels across the room during the telling. Dawn through dusk. A heavily pregnant woman moves around stage spinnibg the stories together like a conversation we are a part of but don't contribute to.
The telling is harrowing and connected. Stories of violence. Reema who married Ajay. The girl in the servo. The screaming girl next to the neighbour. The girl on the phone at work. Reema who broke out of the locked flat and told her story to strangers. Reema who told the neighbour of the beatings, the starvings, the rapes. Reema who escaped. But not really because this story starts in the coroner's court so we already know how it ends.
It's heavy handed but impressive. 90min monologue that grips the audience tight. The communal gasp when we hear that a officer told Reema that Ajay was just texting to tell her he still loved her. The palpable relief when PI Pee-wee looses his quarry. The slide of facts and truths into the narrative. Why women stay. How many we lose. What it costs financially.
Leaving the theatre everyone is talking about violence. Maybe just maybe we might do something about it. Though the call to action is strong the course of the action is not clear to the audience and they walk away.
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