This two-hander about consent, abuse and the doubt cast over women’s testimonies is magnetically minimalist. Lauren (Michelle Monteith) tells us that Luke (David Patrick Flemming), who enters the stage beside her, will tell her story. Later, we find out that she is a journalist, and so perfectly capable of telling it herself. Yet the telling is ceded to Luke.
It begins with a newspaper assignment for a case of domestic abuse. She speaks to the survivor, the perpetrator and the company boss who re-employed the latter despite his assault. The experience sends Lauren to her own past – traumatic memories of being sexually violated and raped by a family member. Cleverly directed by Christian Barry, there is tension and horror. You lean in and listen. Lauren looks on as her story is narrated by Luke, her face registering the shocks.
Premiering in Edinburgh, the acclaimed Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s drama this week won a Fringe First award. Its themes overlap with those in Inter Alia, currently playing at the National Theatre in London, and Heidi Schreck’s masterful What the Constitution Means to Me.
So what niggles and makes Red Like Fruit feel, beneath the surface, confected? In its framing, with Luke speaking for Lauren, there is an obvious analogy of the way women’s stories are often silenced or co-opted by men.
But what is Lauren’s position? Is she pointing this out, in silent condemnation, or is she willingly deferring the power of her testimony to Luke? She later explains that words are simply more believed when men speak them. Given the low conviction rates for rape charges, where women’s accounts are challenged, this is apt. But if this is the point of Luke’s ventriloquism, it seems too obvious and slightly gimmicky.
Lauren is a strangely drawn character. She has internalised the misogyny, talking about the overweight women in her therapy group, and thinking herself a failure for being there, reassuring herself that she is a successful mother and wife. And she is slowly rising up against the conditioning to stay quiet about men’s damaging behaviour.
But she is too naive: charmed by the company boss who justifies domestic violence and knowing she’s angry but not sure about what. What makes rape at the hands of a family member any different from sex that you regret, she asks Luke. It sounds too basic a question on consent from a journalist working on a domestic violence case, about a subject that has been in the air for many years. It all feels pre rather than post #MeToo. Maybe that is the point?
None of these worries detract from the dramatic power of this piece. Tension remains strong, and the stories of abuse and undermining of women linger long afterwards. It’s just the mode of their telling that feels off.
• At Traverse theatre, Edinburgh, until 24 August
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