Last year Charlie Josephine presented Joan of Arc as a heroic non-binary renegade. Their new play is about the male gaze, especially its effect on adolescent girls. Directed by Julia Head, Flies is a tender and impassioned study of the cusp between girlhood and womanhood. But it takes on too much in 70 minutes and ends up sweeping across the surface and speaking in generalisations.
Cat Fuller’s stage design is set up like a photo shoot, with seven performers captured in a camera’s gaze. It is clear these characters are marooned inside the bounds of the backdrop roll; when they stray beyond it, an explosive flash of the camera sends them scarpering back. This perilous state is made explicit with meta-theatrical references to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.
