Release concerns four women in ‘Lockwood’ women’s prison, who are in drama therapy facilitated by a troubled female therapist, Catherine (Rhiannon Prytherch). This 70-minute studio production directed by Matt Green has a powerful effect on the audience. The audience is moved, but after the performance few could say why.

Portraying women in prison is a familiar device, but Angela Truby’s play deals with none of the usual themes about incarcerated individuals. Even the ‘release’ of the title is not about physically getting out of prison. These four women should serve their time for their appalling crimes, as we shall see. It’s all about the release of emotion. The play is a pure piece of therapy culture.

The women are in mock prison gear, track suit bottoms and grey t-shirts. This simple representation of prison uniform has the same intention as real uniforms, to remove not mere individuality but any bodily physicality. In the play it is not the body but the emotions that are the object. Bodily energy comes through only to emphasise the emotions, in the warm, accommodating physicality of Angela (Lorelie Knowles), the aggressive sexuality of Chelsea (Eleanor Wilton), the hysterical demanding asceticism of Elizabeth (Carly Lee), the childish dependency of Sarah (Jacqueline Lee) and the obsessive neuroticism of Catherine who is constantly ‘washing’ her hands.

The fulcrum of the cast’s energy is violence, and the play offers the audience an unremitting exposure to the recounting of extreme violence, the brutal physical destruction of a woman for flirting, the murder and dismemberment of a despotic husband, the accidental killing of a bullying step mother and the drowning of a child by her mother. There is no therapeutic catharsis, no regret and no redemption. Then the play ends. Members of the audience commented that they wanted the play to go on. Interviewing members of the admirable young cast, they explained that the ending was left open as an intellectual challenge to playgoers to provide their own ending. 

This doesn’t quite ring true, and the cast may not understand their own play. There is one understated argument in the text - that all of us, illustrated by these women are, to some extent, mad. ‘No one is sane, it’s all about degrees’ says Catherine. They are provoked women, certainly, but that does not justify their actions and there is no moral debate in the play. There may be hints of an old-fashioned feminist concern with women’s domestic oppression in the cast’s and the playwright’s minds. But is murder and brutality the answer for bruised egos and bruised bodies? Without a moral focus in the play, the staged expression of these women’s violent emotional reactions is almost misogynistic. They are unlovable to a woman and they will deservedly serve out their time.     

The power of the play is in its expression of visceral emotions. But the emotions are released and that’s it.  We’re all a bit mad and emotional at times. It can’t be helped. That seems to be the message. Whatever the intentions of Truby and the cast to leave things open we are left with the fact of the release of emotions. In the therapeutic, emotionally obsessed culture, in which we live the idea that our feelings have almost a moral authority as authentic expressions of our inner selves is almost a commonplace. The releasing of them is therefore seen as the most important activity in response or reaction to any experience. After the experience of witnessing these five women explore their feelings a thoughtful audience could only draw one conclusion: emotions are not enough.

Run over.