Scenes with Girls does what it says on the tin: twenty-two scenes, divided by sharp musical interludes and lighting, revolving around the lives of two (or perhaps three) women. Written by Miriam Battye, this is Labyrinth Productions’ and Full Moon Theatre’s return to the Burton Taylor Studio for their final Oxford student theatre production.
The stage is set from the moment the audience walks in. Tosh (Juliet Taub) and Lou (Sanaa Pasha) are lounging on beanbags on their phones, occasionally touching. This offhand closeness is echoed in their dialogue. Lou regales Tosh with musings on partners and the carbohydrates they resemble ("a human bagel of a boy", "he lay there like a piece of bread") as well as her own feelings about intimacy (“I’m really into this idea of not being in your own body”). Tosh is partly entranced by Lou but wants to be seen and heard as well. Lou is entranced with her own narration.
The witty, percussive dialogue is expertly delivered with the tempo evolving as the scenes progress. The pair go from finishing each other's sentences to talking over each other, or simply not responding at all. Fran, played brilliantly by Georgina Cooper, is used by Lou as a convenient "buffer" for Tosh, whose exasperation grows in response to Lou's absence of engagement with her life.
Fran’s empty parroting of Lou’s stories ("that's so interesting") is both uncomfortable and hilarious. She manages to be both pitiable and annoying. More excellent carbohydrate lines are used to great effect here (Lou calls Fran’s fiancé "the human equivalent of a lasagna. Sloppy, gutless"). Fran is the perfect foil in these early scenes for Tosh and Lou’s entangled feelings of adoration, reliance and jealousy.
Tosh’s growing disconnection is made physically clear: she alternates in these scenes with Fran between lying protectively on Lou’s lap and listlessly on her back. Physicality is used by both actors throughout to maintain a sense of movement. In one scene, they do glute bridges as they talk. In others, they are falling over each other or restlessly pacing, curled up or triumphantly throwing confetti.
The emotional climaxes of the play, with longer scenes and confrontations, are also kept dynamic by canny staging and props: a bathroom for outbursts or disengagement, mugs of tea that are spilt, clothes which are strewn and folded, laptops which are snapped shut.
If the final music choice did initially feel a little on the nose ("we'll stick it out together like we always do"), it also played into some of the play's central themes: navigating between oppressive normalcy and performative detachment, between stories which feel stale and those which are alive, embodied and felt. Scenes with Girls is certainly the latter.