GIRL SHUT YOUR MOUTH
July 2023
The Mill, Adelaide
Written by Gita Bezard
Directed by Matilda Butler
Synopsis
Katie dreams of a place where the drinks are minty, the people are kind, and no one tells you what to do. But the ticket to paradise comes with a price.
Mia and Grace are jealous. They want to come too. What follows is a sharp, gut-wrenching story of girlhood, loyalty, and the limits of hope in a brutal world.
Girl Shut Your Mouth is both confronting and darkly funny. A bold piece about growing up, getting out, and what society expects from young women.
Cast
Mia Ellis as Mia
Lizzie Zeuner as Katie
Ashlynn Bunt as Grace
Jasmyn Setchell as Darcy
Tech
Lighting: Jayden Cowell
Sound: Oscar Sarre
Reviews
“Matilda Butler skilfully shapes her four performers, allowing each to ascend and take the lead.” — Stage Whispers
“Setchell brings us crashing back to earth with natural realism.”
“Ashlynn Bunt is brilliant as Grace... a subtlety and experience beyond her years.”
“Ellis' transformation is exceptional. It’s heart-breaking and real.”
Deadset Theatre pull no punches as a young people’s theatre company dealing with challenging themes. Director (and Deadset co-founder) Matilda Butler skilfully shapes her four performers, allowing each to ascend and take the lead, before fading back to allow another to take her place. And Butler has a great ensemble to work with: Lizzie Zeuner is the dominant Katie: equal parts condescension and over-the-top smugness at being the only one injured enough to be able to escape. Jasmyn Setchell is at the other end of the clique spectrum – her character, Darcy, is anxious, outwardly scared, yet practical, trying hard to balance her concern for the group with that for her own life.
Zeuner and Setchell give remarkable, though very different performances. Zeuner exemplifying the audience’s hope that this is just fiction, with Setchell bringing us crashing back to earth with a natural realism to remind us this is most definitely happening outside the four walls of the theatre.
Ashlynn Blunt is brilliant as the level-headed Grace, the understated anchor of the clique. Blunt is entirely believable as someone who has experienced so much trauma that it’s now the norm, chewing up her hard-to-swallow dialogue and delivering it so calmly. Despite Katie’s volume and brashness, it’s Grace who guides the group through the first half of this story, and Blunt achieves that with a subtlety and experience beyond her years.
But the second half is all about Mia (Mia Ellis), who when she thinks she’s let down the group in an earlier experiment, seeks redemption through even riskier behaviour. Ellis’ transition from superficial self-confidence to traumatised victim is exceptional. It’s heart-breaking and real.
- Stage Whispers
