In silent films, the female lead was often a wide-eyed beauty, tied to the train tracks, waiting to be rescued by the male hero.
A century on, how much has changed? The woman on her knees with a gun in her mouth is just a variation on a theme. And there’s another gender stereotype: the gun-toting femme fatale, or deadly doll. She might seem like a figure of empowerment, but is merely a vehicle for male fantasies that see female violence as erotic.
All of these images are explored in Louise Orwin’s A Girl and a Gun, which headlines Camden People’s theatre’s brilliantly wide-ranging annual festival of feminist theatre, Calm Down Dear, and takes its title from Jean-Luc Godard’s suggestion that “all you need for a movie is a gun and a girl”. Or as the film critic Pauline Kael put it in the title of her 1968 collection of writings: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
There are intriguing strands here, but the show feels overlong yet underdeveloped, as if its themes haven’t yet found theatrical form. There are some good observations about the concept of “the male gaze”, which is magnified by the use of screens, so we are often watching a man who is watching a woman. It raises issues around our own collusion as movie watchers.
Orwin adds a layer to the show by performing nightly with a different male actor who is seeing the script for the first time. It suggests that while heroes change, female gender stereotypes remain the same. It also raises questions about whether the script (and traditional narratives) can ever really be altered, or whether the imagery of gender stereotypes is now so deeply imprinted on our brains that we are all tied to the train tracks, trapped by our own inability to look beyond the roles assigned to us.
• At Camden People’s theatre, London, until 3 October. Box office: 020-7419 4841.
