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Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Four stars

Roxy is on fire. It’s a new moon, and she and her mates, Bushra, Gina and Joanne, are on the verge of something that burns even brighter, and things will never be the same again. So it goes in Maryam Hamidi’s new play for teenagers and upwards, which charts Roxy and co’s journey into womanhood with hormonally charged abandon, with an extra added frisson of would-be witchcraft for good measure.  


Set beside designer Jen McGinley’s mountain of junkyard detritus where Roxy and her coven cast spells without being disturbed, Hamidi’s play cops some of its moves from the more supernaturally inclined branch of teen TV that serves up similarly inclined rites of passage. Hamidi, director Joanna Bowman and their turbo charged young cast bring adolescent angst and everyday dysfunction to bear with a scabrous wit that masks their vulnerability even as it helps cast out the assorted demons they face. Most pressing of these is the illness of Roxy’s ill mother, Shideh, played movingly by Zahra Browne.


Bowman’s Citizens Theatre production is a girl gang riot of a show, performed with raucous abandon by Cindy Awor as Bushra, Leah Byrne as Gina, and Hannah Visocchi as Joanne, all led into temptation by Layla Kirk’s mercurial Roxy.  
 

Yet, beyond the rage that drives the play is a sensitive and moving study of the uneasy bond between mothers, daughters, and the spirited sisters who share the same growing pains en route to womanhood. If some things are beyond their control, Hamidi’s play is a call to arms for young women stepping out into the world to hold on to the power in their possession that keeps their fire alive.  


The Herald, February 8th, 2023

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