Dennis Kelly's "Girls and Boys" is a one woman play that uses some of the techniques of a one-person show in interesting ways - the narrator acknowledges at one point that the characters she's talking to are not really there, and also that she's telling only one side of the story. But it's also a show that builds a story of a relationship and the raising of a young family to a breathtaking conclusion - and offers Justine Clarke a powerhouse role that allows her to live through the story, from the gentle innocence of first meeting to the devastation that shows up in the finale. You certainly feel like you've lived through an experience at the end.
This is a play that it's worth knowing not-very-much when you go into it, though the trigger warnings for graphic description of violence is absolutely necessary - it's just described, not shown, but you feel it viscerally when it hits. Clarke is magnificent in the centre of this story - not giving away a skerrick of where this rollercoaster is going to go, but drawing us in all the way. Designer Ailsa Patterson gives the setting a gentle abstractness with lots of spaces to manouvre, and director Mitchell Butel guides the way expertly.
This is a major work with a major actress seizing centre stage in a story both compelling and shocking. It left me gobsmacked.
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