The Bogus Woman
A young woman arrives in a strange country. A woman who has committed no crime. She is indefinitely confined, humiliated, racially and sexually abused. She witnesses her guards' petty dishonesty and casual brutality. The country is England. It is 1997.
Credits
- Writer
- Kay Adshead
- Director
- Lisa Goldman
- Producer
- The Red Room Theatre Company / Mama Quilla Productions
- Performer
- Noma Dumezweni
Mama Quilla Productions' first major work and Kay Adshead's most widely-produced play. The Bogus Woman was developed in close research with women held in UK immigration detention and was first performed at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, in August 2000. It won the Fringe First and was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
The play was subsequently produced internationally, with translations into French and Spanish, and has been published by Oberon Books.
Press
“Adshead's angry, stripped-down script bleeds humanity. Words in Adshead's hands are bullets.”
“Lisa Goldman's production is agit-prop theatre at its best — detailed, urgent, compassionate and blessed with a deeply-felt performance from Dumezweni.”
“Kay Adshead's devastating, well-researched play lifts the lid on aspects of our immigration procedures … heart-wrenching without descending into sentimentality. Political theatre is alive again.”
“Thanks to Kay Adshead's beautifully deft script and Noma Dumezweni's breathtaking performance this terrifying story is always told with variety and versatility and even, on occasion, with humour.”
Awards
- Fringe First, The Scotsman (2000)
- Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist (2001–02)
International productions
- La Femme Fantôme (French translation by Séverine Magois, dir. Michael Batz / La Compagnie Yorick)
- La Mujer Invisible (Spanish translation by Carla Matteini, dir. Santiago Sánchez / L'Om Imprebis)
Published by Oberon Books, London