Caged review: A swipe at objectification and violence against women

Caged
Smock Alley
★★★
First images last. Entering the theatre we see two women held up by red silk scarfs, their high heels barely touching the ground, head bowed, faces concealed by hair, their bodies juddering intermittently. In spite of the sassy dance numbers that follow, this image is the undertow to Femme Bizarre's swipe at objectification and violence towards women.

Kate Finegan and Jade O’Connor don’t miss much with those swipes: from cringy church-sanctioned sex education and sickening first-hand testimonies of abuse of women by religious orders, to sly hands on the dance-floor and casual slaps to girlfriends.

Harrowing text often jars against slick set-pieces of aerial dance, wide-eyed song and straight-up dance sequences, much as two characters gloss over abuse in a club. In design and performance, Caged was articulate with just a few awkward transitions upsetting the performance energy.

Runs until Sunday, September 16th