What you need to know
An experimental drama called Sirens about what it means to be a woman today has opened at the Soho Theatre in London. The show, written and performed by six members of the Belgian company, Ontroerend Goed, appeared at the Edinburgh Festival earlier this year.
The non-narrative work uses a sound-scape of poetry, song, humour and vocal wordplay to explore the sexist representations, expectations and experiences of women in the modern Western world. Runs until 4 January.
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What the critics like
This "urgent and deeply unsettling" piece confronts the avalanche of sexist attitudes women encounter every day, says Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard. The show's brilliant, teasing construction revitalises familiar issues and nothing we see and hear is free from disquieting ambiguity.
Sirens is full of confusions and contradictions, but also "great power and bubbling wit", says Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. This brave, beautifully put-together show is startling and thought-provoking, daring not only to deliver a deadpan roster of appallingly misogynistic jokes, but also to go deep into female sexual fantasy and the way women judge and put each other down.
At once "devastatingly intelligent, funny, challenging and disturbing", Sirens is a thoughtful treatment of feminism, says Leo West in The Upcoming. The show is important not only in terms of its content but also in its theatrical form. It is presented as a piece of chamber music – not six actors, but rather a sextet of voices.
What they don't like
It's "uncomfortable, but riveting", says Daisy Bowie-Sell in Time Out. Discomfort comes when we are told snippets of everyday sexism, yet it's "a dynamic, essential evening and one that challenges the way we see each other and ourselves".
