Sticky Door
VAULT Festival, The Vaults, Leake Street, London, SE1 7NN
Tuesday 11th – Sunday 16th February 2020
“The 2014 plan was a simple one, I would “Casanova” myself around our nation’s capital looking for consenting heterosexual adult males. One no-frills lover-man for every month. I was the original calendar girl. Helen Mirren plays me in the film.”
The multi-award-winning team behind Sexy Lamp and Bicycles and Fish are back with the third part in the amazing It’s a Girl! trilogy. Sticky Door by Katie Arnstein is a personal, honest and funny look at sex, dating and feminism, directed by Ellen Havard (Ad Libido by Fran Bushe, Edinburgh Fringe 2018 and VAULT 2018; Sexy Lamp, Edinburgh Fringe 2019).
Set two years after Sexy Lamp, Sticky Door sees Arnstein continue in the pursuit to become an actor whilst setting herself a new challenge to have ‘no strings attached’ sexual intercourse with consenting heterosexual adult males without getting emotionally involved.
Arnstein comments, I love Desert Island Discs. When listening to Kirsty Young speak with Dame Minouche Shafik, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, I heard Shafik mention that she did not like the idea of a glass ceiling. That it suggested if you keep smashing your head against it then it will shatter and all other women can come through, which wasn’t her experience. She preferred the idea of a sticky door where someone on the other side helps you open it and that, once you are through, it is up to you to help the next person. This was a lightbulb moment as, for me, there has never really been a glass ceiling but a series of doors that were shut. Some of them I have got through with the help of people on the other side. Some of them have stayed firmly closed.
I hope that Sticky Door can add to the rallying cry against sexism, empower the audience to knock down the doors they want to open, be kind enough help others through and encourage confidence to build our own spaces where the doors remain closed.
From an all-female production and creative team, Sticky Door discusses everyday sexism, dating and shame, all with Arnstein’s original trademark songs on the ukulele. She asks us why women seem to be facing a series of sticky doors in work, sex and life when men aren’t encountering the same.
Excitingly, Sunday 16th February will see Arnstein perform the entire It’s a Girl! trilogy with Bicycles and Fish (about the day she became a woman), Sexy Lamp (about her experiences in the entertainment industry) and Sticky Door – a true theatre treat not to be missed.
Sticky Door is generously supported by Arts Council England, Pleasance Futures Fund and Redbridge Drama Centre