Dames
Pleasance, Carpenters Mews, North Road, London N7 9EF
Tuesday 17th – Sunday 29th April 2018
This spring, the Pleasance sees the world premiere of Charlotte Merriam’s Dames.
Celebrating females with no filters, Dames is about the intimate and exposing nature of friendships in the true contemporary confessional – the club toilet.
Drowning in their own word vomit, six dysfunctional millennials collide, bond and clash. Siberian Lights’ gloriously rude debut play is a glimpse into the shambolic honesty of a world where the rules of civility are suspended.
Dames will feature Ellie Heydon (Harlots, HULU/ITV; A Night in Hatton Gardens, Working Title Feature; Growth, The Gate Theatre), Olivia Elsden (Sket, The Park Theatre; Doc Martin, ITV; Blood, The Other Room), Charlotte Merriam (Off their Rockers, ITV; Swansong, Edinburgh Fringe and Arcola Theatre; Under My Thumb, Greenwich Theatre), Arabella Neale (The Red Barn, National Theatre; A Very English Scandal, BBC; Ring Ring, The Gate Theatre), Bianca Stephens (Always Orange, RSC; Julius Caesar, Storyhouse Chester; The Great Austerity Debate, Menagerie Theatre) and Melanie Stevens (Golf Course War Machine, UK
tour; Frozen, The Other Room; Lear in the Memorandum, Big Loop Theatre).
Dames is a rude awakening about personal disarray. Exploring the desperate need for affirmation and security which leaks out when alcohol washes away the veneer of competent adulthood, the play uses surrealism to lay bare the barrier between thought and speech.
Writer and actor Charlotte Merriam comments, Dames is about trying to figure out the meaning of life, the point of it all. It’s the bizarre, vibrant, surreal conversation that can only happen in the loo at 2am on a night out. This is a play to make you laugh and cry, love your friends all the more, and make you consider the anxiety and boundaries which block real honesty.