WRESTLELADSWRESTLE

Review of WRESTLELADSWRESTLE at HOME, Manchester.

“I’m Jennifer Jackson… and tonight I’m going to show you how to remove someone from a house party.”

And she’s not messing around – with the help of Simon Carroll Jones (playing a “drunk uncle”), she does just that.

It’s one of several moments in WRESTLELADSWRESTLE where Jennifer Jackson calmly and methodically demonstrates to the audience (both onstage and off) how to deal with an opponent – in judo, wrestling or even daily life.

However, the genesis of Jackson’s new show comes from a place less easy to process, more unmanageable – her memories of witnessing her mother endure a racist incident when she was a child.

Painful details are repeatedly recounted, picked over and relived – the public nature of it all, how no one intervened to help, the fallout back home between her parents, and ultimately how powerless she felt.

Reframing the memories becomes a way for Jackson to imagine a better outcome – as she slays the perpetrator to cheers from a watching crowd, or extracts a public apology with her excellent oratorical skills. Her scenarios are vivid and almost gleeful, their childlike simplicity emphasising how they have been carried within, shaped and reshaped for so long.

Jackson recalls her fearful mother trying to make herself very small, and her show burns with a determination to help women stand tall.

She went on to become an under 50kg British Judo Champion – and on stage she assembles an ever-growing group of diverse women, a girl gang, with whom she shares her skills.

Red, yellow and blue gym mats cover the stage, and intentionally or not, they offer an echo of Jackson’s Anglo-Bolivian heritage, a mix of both countries’ national colours.

In amongst the action, drummer Isobel Odelola provides rapid beats, like bursts of adrenaline as the women make an entrance – but her sounds also trace the thwacks and thuds as bodies hit the mats.

Channelling the feel of a community judo club, the show emphasises not just the camaraderie but also how there is comfort and reassurance to be found in a place of rules, order, and mutual respect – somewhere where everyone bows together.

Pointedly Jackson remembers her discovery that in in such a space, “you can hit the floor over and over”, but still get up.

There is a recurring sense of pain being confronted and processed within a controlled environment. Through ‘play fights’ with Carroll Jones where nips, slaps and punches are exchanged, or in a battle royale with a blow-up doll – but also woven in to so many elements of the performance.

WRESTLELADSWRESTLE is richly layered. Stories within stories. The wrestling Cholitas Jackson discovered while exploring Bolivian culture, the ferocious performance of the Danse Apache depicting a physical argument between a woman and a man, or a powerful monologue highlighting the pervasiveness of violence against women.

Structurally, the show mirrors the complexity of Jackson’s thoughts and feelings, and occasionally it feels a bit too slippery narratively – but then the drums will speed up, the screen on stage floods with colour, another group of women join their friends on stage, and we move on.

Brimming over with pride and positivity, the girl gang create a sense of celebration, but also of spectacle – in their swelling numbers, demonstrations of strength, and embrace of the showmanship of wrestling.

They learn moves, cheer each other on, and fill the stage with so much energy – at one point, as they cluster closely together you can see the heat rising off them under the bright lights.

Movement is scrutinised, not critically but supportively. Jackson observes the placement of bodies, describes positions, shows the other women how it can be done, and offers encouragement. The skills of a judo sensei, but also the tools of her chosen profession of choreography.

There’s a roaming cinematic quality to idontloveyouanymore’s video backdrop – zooming in for carefully selected close-ups, capturing excited backstage preparations and flashing up colour-drenched graphics celebrating each participant as they arrive.

At times, the production visibly strains at the seams of HOME’s Theatre 2, with the livestreamed off stage warm-ups, performers charging in from the back of the audience, and even some women running fearlessly at a padded wall.

At its heart, WRESTLELADSWRESTLE is a production about taking up space, and being empowered – and it might even be a victim of its own success, with its ambitions slightly squeezed by the size of the stage. All that energy, the dynamism of the storytelling, and this 30-strong company of performers would undoubtedly benefit from a bigger space – to breathe out more, stand even taller, shout louder, and be fully seen.

While the girl gang members cloak themselves in Marvel-worthy personas, with a glorious cavalcade of no-nonsense names – Cherry Bomb, Ovarian Barbarian, Crazy Cat Curran – Jackson resists the allure of a superhero name. Yet, in so many ways, this is a larger-than-life origin story, so much more than a process of catharsis on a crashmat.

That personal evolution is boiled down into a gripping solo sequence, as Jackson’s beating of the floor in blind rage gradually morphs into determined finessing of judo moves, and then finally she dances the Bolivian caporales. Not for her the small coy moves traditionally assigned to the female dancers, she claims as her own those of the men – swaggering and expansive, with her arms punching the air, she exudes joy.

HOME.

Performance seen on 5 October 2024.

WRESTLELADSWRESTLE runs at HOME from 3 October to 12 October 2024.

Images provided by HOME.