"Pony" is a slick, funny comedy monologue about a 37-year-old woman dealing with a messy family history and an upcoming pregnancy, with wit, aggression, and a take-no-prisoners honesty. Elouise Snape has created a character who's easy for an audience to take to their hearts - genial, friendly, blunt, and very full of Too Much Information which she's willing to impart. Director Anthea Williams stages it on a glittering stage reflective of both nightclub culture and with a prominent rocking horse indicating the child-on-its-way and also Hazel's own not-quite-grown-up-ness. Briallen Clarke gives Hazel a whole lot of warmth that isn't necessarily completely in the text and rounds out the character into a very real, very approachable young woman.
Clearly, I'm not the same demographic as the character (I'm a 49-year-old gay man who, barring sudden surprises in my life, is probably not going to be raising children), and therefore a story that talks about the meaning of maternity in a woman's life is largely of theoretical interest to me. And this does feel a little bit of a throwback to 80's works like "Baby Boom" and "The Heidi Chronicles" which ultimately settled on women finding meaning through maternity - they felt at the time like a bit of a feminist backlash and this slightly feels that way as well, reducing a female character largely to her child-rearing-potential (the one mention of her career doesn't entirely make it clear how she earns a crust - she talks about being in community radio, which I know from multiple years experience doesn't pay most of its volunteers - does she have a co-ordinating role that actually pays? It shouldn't matter but it's not really made clear how she earns a crust).
Look, this is, as I said, a very funny, modern play that feels ready for many young actresses to perform highly successfully (while Clarke gives it a performance that feels definitive and Williams gives it a staging that is striking and specific). And I have no doubt this will be a great success for many, and no one play can define all of a woman's experiences, nor should it try to. But this does come across as a more conventional play than it should, coming from Griffin.
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