What A Fanny @ The Arches

What A Fanny has been on my mind for most of this week. Leyla Josephine's  entry for Into the New, it is not really appropriate for review in my usual fashion (a student work, it's not in the same category as the latest touring production by the NTS) and alongside moments of brilliance - as when she segues from arrogant exhibitionism into shameless desperation - there are uncomfortable lapses when the traces of educational process (copying existing theatre, clumsy matches of form and content, and a painfully personal monologue) undermine her uncompromising vision. And yet, in her simple question - roughly, can a feminist wear hot-pants - Leyla  opens up an intriguing discussion.

The strongest moments of the show capture the tension in her understanding of feminism. A romantic interlude set to Disney music is brutally interrupted by bellowing, misogynist hip-hop. When she describes a disco and its erotic frisson, she undermines her brittle sexual confidence by collapsing into a desperate begging for attention. A rhyming summary of her introduction to sex, and how she became "a woman with a reputation" is contrasted with a visit to a hospital for procedures unnamed, possibly an abortion. Throughout, What A Fanny is clear: a modern woman might see her seductive outfit as empowering, but it unfortunately makes her an objectified fantasy figure for men.

It's an idea that Ruth Mills is set to address later this year in Girlfriend, and although the actual question is less challenging to older feminists (rejection of lipstick as an intrinsic tool of the patriarchy has not been fashionable since the 1970s), O'Coll-Reilly deals with the issue not as a philosophical ponder, but a lived experience. That she wipes off her make-up and dresses in a modest outfit to finally present herself as a feminist does destroy her hopeful suggestion that a feminist could wear "that outfit": but the battle between looking glamorous and identifying as a woman ready to stand up for her equality is engagingly portrayed.

The actual question of whether a feminist can wear hot-pants - or whether hot-pants and high heels are only worn by women in a severe state of internalised oppression - does depend on which strand of feminism is under consideration. The crop of female artists, from Rihanna to Lady Gaga, who stomp about half-naked and claim that they are making a statement about individual liberty, are useless: never mind the social impact of videos that would have passed for pornography in the 1980s, no major recording artist has made a decision for themselves since Radiohead dropped Okay Computer. They are commodities whether they wear lingerie or a boiler suit. But since Madonna, the idea of wearing provocative clothing and believing in personal autonomy has been current. Those hot-pants could just be a way of attracting attention or an expression of individual liberty.

What A Fanny's trick is to move the discussion beyond the abstract and into the real world of the nightclub: bitching in the toilets, judging other women's outfits, grinding against an unwelcome stranger, grooving to lyrics that make Eminem sound like an intellectual parody of rap's excesses. Of course, the emotional nakedness of the performance is, in itself, a form of exhibitionism and to judge her outfit while accepting her monologues is to miss a serious danger in the sort of Live Art that encourages such confessional honesty.

Ultimately, What A Fanny exercises a dialogue between the woman's right to control her appearance and her recognition that her choices might give a certain impression. She gives no obvious answers, no solutions, but offers an intelligent and sincere attempt to put feminism back into the public sphere.