Review – Four Letter Words – Playhouse Studio, Liverpool

Hannah Greenstreet’s new play Four Letter Words is brought to the intimate stage of the Playhouse Studio this week under the nimble-handed direction of Millie Foy. The layered writing explores a complex range of subject matter, including loneliness, isolation, the world of online relationships and the search for connection and personal identity.

We all remember images in the media of students confined to their tiny flats, vulnerable people in almost total quarantine during the various stages of Covid lockdown, and the mind-boggling tier system that isolated entire communities. That recent period in our shared history has forced so much more of our interaction with others online than ever before, with more and more of what used to be face to face contact now still taking place in virtual meeting places.

This etheric meeting of people in cyberspace, along with all the concerns it brings around personal safety, grooming and its effects on mental health is dissected in a work that is, by turns, moving, funny, thought provoking and occasionally disturbing.

We first meet Gemma, played by Emma Harrison, stuck in her Manchester student bedsit talking to Mum and Dad in Liverpool via Facetime. Almost everyone else has abandoned the building and headed home – something that Gemma was hoping to do – but her dad is in quarantine awaiting important surgery, so her parents are not prepared to take the risk. They seem unable to comprehend the sense of isolation that Gemma is experiencing.

Her only other contact, also via the internet, is with her best friend Siobhan (Nancy Bennett) and the mysterious M (Samantha Alton), with whom she embarks on a complicated relationship in a BDSM chatroom.

This is where the text opens up a fascinating debate about the double-edged sword of online chat. In many ways it can be a sometimes lifesaving way to connect and find a way out of isolation. It can also be a vehicle for those searching to understand their own needs and desires, especially when those involve kinks that are hard to express in person. This is something that Gemma finally manages to discuss with Siobhan, only to receive a barrage of warnings about the potential dangers.

Harrison’s performance is like watching someone engaged simultaneously in a juggling and a plate-spinning act, as she navigates her way around the conflicting demands of friends and family, whilst learning about her own personal needs and boundaries. The life of a student is supposed to be a journey of self discovery as much as it is of academic learning, but in a world detached from physical reality it becomes a completely different journey altogether.

Chloe Wynn’s set design is sparingly furnished but decorated with intricate detail, and places the action in something partway between thrust and traverse layout. We see Bennett and Alton playing out all the other roles, almost exclusively to camera, as we also see them appear in real time, projected onto the walls surrounding the virtual world that Gemma occupies.

This is an immaculately realised performance of a play that challenges us to re-evaluate our relationships with a virtual reality.

Rating: 4 stars

Production photography by Brian Roberts 

This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool