"Scenes with Girls". Burton Taylor
Scenes With Girls . It sounds like an exhibition of paintings, doesn’t it? a series of flattering views of pretty young ladies sketched by Degas, po-faced and static under a leering, male gaze. But the only flattering Miriam Battye’s play does is the kind that’s designed to deceive. These scenes are anything but pretty. They’re messy and alive. And that word ‘scenes’ has a double meaning: they’re the 22 sections of the play, sure, but they’re also violent arguments (as in ‘Don’t make a scene!’). Tosh (Juliet Taub) and Lou (Sanaa Pasha) live together as friends. They share opinions, dreams and even a mutual spoken shorthand – phrases they’ve grown up with (like shouting ‘Willem Dafoe!’) that mean a lot to them but nothing to us. Occasionally, they’re visited by Fran (Georgina Cooper), the friend they both love to hate, and who shares the audience’s sense of being locked out of their smug, Booksmart -inflected little world. And over 22 snapshots of their lives, the backstory gradual...