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Belly of the Beast (Susan Elkin reviews)

Belly of the Beast

By Saana Sze

Finborough Theatre

 

Star rating 3.5

 

Schools are political organisations. And we are almost all have experience of them as pupils or parents. Many of us, moreover, have worked in them as teachers or in another capacity. But what, exactly, are schools for?   Saana Sze’s play, set in a school in the East End in the present time, takes us to very familiar territory.

A richly written two hander, Belly of the Beast presents Martha, who has a troubled education history of her own, now enrolling as a trainee teacher. Sam Rampoe-Parry plays the teenage Martha, mostly at one end of the traverse space, and Shiloh Coke plays her at 30 something, mostly at the opposite end of the playing area. Their alternating speeches are aimed knowingly past each other until eventually they meet face to face as one merges into the other.

The issues come thick and fast. Martha arrives at the school on her first day, with another trainee to find that the Head of English isn’t expecting them – oh yes, a situation I can identify with. Communication within schools has never been foolproof. YoungMartha, meanwhile, is in trouble at school, and trying to deal with an evangelical mother who knows Martha’s head teacher through church. And it’s so easy, and such fun, to go on Facebook and access personal information about your teachers.

We also share NowMartha’s early attempts to teach Macbeth to Year 9, and as a former teacher, I can feel (shudderingly!) the pupil sneering, mistrust and insolence as they test her out – nicely done.  Both actors tell stories by acting the voices and stances of the people they have conversations with and they’re good at it although when Rampoe-Parry gets really intense and talks very fast there is a tendency  to stumble over the script.

The real issue at the heart of this play, though, is transgenderism. Martha is non-binary and just beginning to think about and come to terms with that in her YoungMartha incarnation, when it isn’t making her life any easier. In adult life she is married to Claire – “white and straight-passing” who gives her plenty of advice and support. How much should she tell the school authorities? She doesn’t want to be addressed as either Miss or Sir but eventually, reluctantly settles for Miss and keeps quiet. For school she symbolically removes her breast binder – incidentally, trying to fasten such a fiddly garment under your vest in front of an audience must be pretty stressful but she manages it after a tense few moments.

Then there’s an incident. A student named Q has recognised what Martha is and sent her a coming out email. Of course Martha, assisted by her mentor, tries to be supportive. Then the you-know-what hits the fan. The Head tells her “We don’t have any of that nonsense here”. The mentor loses her job and Martha’s position is on the line.

I have rarely seen a play which provided quite so much food for thought relating to an environment I know so well. I’m just sorry that there were only ten people in the audience at the performance I saw. It deserves better than that.

 

Author information
Susan Elkin Susan Elkin is an education journalist, author and former secondary teacher of English. She was Education and Training Editor at The Stage from 2005 - 2016
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