Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Maria Hutchison, Rachael Boothroyd, Katy Brown, Kitty Spathia, Valerio Lusito, Arancha Herreruelo-Alonso, Emma Segar, Keelin Sweeney, Alun Parry, Alan Bower, Adam Byrne, Tony Davies, Louise Garcia, Gillian Peterson-Fox.
Every so often the sound of three gunshots echoes around the Unity Theatre. The effect it has on the audience is one that is just as chilling on the soul as the realisation that what the writer Darren Guy and Director Mikyla Jane Durkan have put together is so rooted in Greek history that as an audience member it’s possible to feel shame for the lack of knowledge you have as the true story of the many women arrested and tortured in Greece after World War Two for the crime of fighting Fascism and Nazism.
It seems completely incomprehensible to modern audiences but for those whose tale is heard in A Thousand Murdered Girls, the harrowing nature of what these brave women went through leaves such a bad taste in the mouth that it is almost impossible to say anything for a while as you take in the awful revelations that keep coming like a battering ram against the flimsiest of defences.
It is rare for a play to be so enthralling, capturing totally the audience’s attention, one where the narration of the script is more like a documentary, presented by some of the most startling performances by the women in the cast, in which the words that were saved in diaries by all that were imprisoned on what is now absurdly a beautiful holiday resort, spell out the exact nature of revenge given out by the far right to the brave Greek women that formed the resistance against Fascism.
Throughout the play, powerful emotions ran deep; in Mikyla Jane Durkan’s superb direction and in commanding performances from Kitty Spathia, Emma Segar and Katy Brown that left the audience unsure of how angry they should be feeling but getting increasingly heated as the story continued.
It is awkward to enjoy a play of such magnitude, there are too many moments in which the play gets under the skin and makes it even more important to remember and never forget what happened in those dark days across Europe. What it does though is add to the important lesson that theatre is not just about having a good time, a belly laugh or two at the expense of the well written joke, it is also there to educate and inform and this is a lesson that needs to be replayed over and over again, if nothing else then for those souls who lost their lives in defending Greece against tyranny.
Ian D. Hall