Review: SEXY LAMP, VAULT Festival

Following her award-winning Bicycles and Fish, Katie Arnstein is back at VAULT Festival with Sexy Lamp, an honest and straightforward account of her beginnings as an actress and a cutting analysis of the flaws and sexism of the business.

Its titles comes from Kelly Sue DeConnick's test that establishes the relevance of a female character: if it's possible to replace a woman with a lamp in any film or piece of entertainment, said work is simply not good enough. Arnstein takes the examination and applies it to her journey through her drama education and career.

She strums her ukulele and entertains the crowd with a shade of irony that muffles the ugly truth of a flawed structure. She depicts a ruthless industry where what's accepted is unacceptable. Recounting her days at drama school, she horridly says how young women are broken to pieces and rebuilt in the suitable way to inhabit that world.

"We are told to say yes" she announces, proceeding to detail how toxic this mindset is and how it allows people in power (especially and obviously men) to prey on the aspiring actors later on. Her polished storytelling skills make her snarky and sarcastic social critique land softly but with precision and edge.

Sexy Lamp is a considerable addition to the larger conversation that seems to be happening around the #MeToo movement at the VAULT Festival this year.

Sexy Lamp runs at VAULT Festival until 10 February.

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