Review: IRON FANTASY, Soho Theatre

Content Warning: references to sexual violence

In the much-cited 2014 book The Body Keeps the Score, the Dutch psychotherapist Bessel van der Kolk wrote of how the human body can be undone and rewired by traumatic experiences. In Iron Fantasy, comedy duo She-Goat have absorbed this idea into their musical comedy, and explored if and how one can regain control over one’s body.

At the show’s core is a very simple question: what does it mean to be strong, and how can we get stronger? Inspired by 1990s icons of stylised combat – Gladiators and Xena: Warrior Princess are frequently namedropped – our geriatric millennial leads (played by She-Goat members Shamira Turner and Eugénie Pastor) undergo a quest to become the strongest versions of themselves. Highly choreographed training montages set to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ et al abound, with an onstage DJ set and flute and autoharp accompaniment by Turner and Pastor.

Something darker clearly lies underneath the retro PE kits and colourful windbreakers. We don’t initially know quite why our leads are so hell-bent on becoming physically indefensible, but references to putting the past behind them and needing “to feel feared” after undergoing training are peppered throughout. Eventually, a lifetime of sexual harassment and abusive relationships pours out, in that way that feels clunky when tacked on the end of an hour of high-octane comedy, but also attuned to the messy realities of coming to terms with one’s experiences.

There’s a metatheatrical element to all this, too – the performers remind us throughout that this is not the show itself but the process of figuring out how to stage an autobiographical show. The dance routines are rehearsals rather than performances, the original songs are performed in brief snatches, and the audience is drawn into a mind and body actively being reshaped. Much like Xena and Gabrielle in the iconic fantasy show, there’s a sense that the duo are doing this for each other, working together to help each other through the pain – towards the end, Pastor will literally lift Turner up.

Inevitably, the duo have a fine line to walk, pinpointing the exact moment to flip the script, turn off the whimsical background music, and acknowledge the spectre of sexual violence – the tonal shift should feel momentous, but also can’t emerge out of nowhere. A secondary thread of trauma, involving pregnancy and parental bereavement while rehearsing the show, is less successfully rendered in this respect, as it seems less organically connected with the rest of the show, which specifically concerns the duo’s obsession with violence and bodily self-protection.

On the whole, though, Iron Fantasy manages to split the difference between indulging in silly comedy and recognising the pain it can take to create it. It resists any quick fix for the after-effects of sexual trauma, and there’s a very effective segment satirising the wellness industrial complex promising to help women “listen to their bodies”. Instead, it invites the audience to rethink their ideas about what strength means, and reminds them that sometimes it is enough merely to survive.

Iron Fantasy plays at Soho Theatre until 21 March