The Scotsman  
Diane Dubois
2 August 2003

The appreciative whooping of tonight's young, up-for-it audience was entirely justified, though it was the extraordinary writing that really earned the crowd's applause. That the author of this pair of astute social satires, Van Badham, is only 27, makes one boggle even more.

The first of her two short plays, Morning on a Rainy Day, introduces us to a post-coital couple who indulge in casual sex and have been doing so for the past nine years. She cannot resist hopping into bed with him; he could not care less, blaming her for her lack of self-control. The dialogue is vicious. Left alone with their thoughts on the stage, the characters' silences are equally eloquent.

This short piece explodes the myth of "masculinity in crisis" and demonstrates that today's young women still have plenty to be angry about.

Even though this first play was very well written, the second satire, Capital, surpasses it. Two American PR executives have been given the impossible task of glossing over a wartime atrocity perpetrated by US forces on children. As the pair search frantically for the "positivisation" of child abuse they inflict abominations on each other in their efforts to understand what "pain" and "vulnerability" might be like.

Sharp intakes of breath alternated with hoots of laughter, as the no-holds-barred dialogue crossed line after line. The word audacious does not come close to the thrilling sense of taboos being broken and truths being told. This play is a wonderful antidote for the dangerous, empty-headed and jargon-riddled times we live in.

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