ROLEPLAY – Summerhall
Sex sells. It always has and judging by the sold-out run of ROLEPLAY at Summerhall, it probably always will. The skin-heavy posters are everywhere, the publicity machine has worked extraordinarily well, but there is an uncomfortable question here. Is ROLEPLAY exploiting the very thing it purports to condemn?
Written and performed by Hannah Reilly, this one-woman show follows Danni, a feminist podcaster who discovers that sexualising herself brings the attention her more earnest work could not. There is potentially fertile ground here, the commodification of feminism, online identity and the uncomfortable intersection between empowerment and exploitation.
Reilly is undoubtedly a committed and energetic performer. My problem is not so much with the performance a...