THINGS THAT DO NOT C(O)UNT, Waterloo East Theatre

Nastazja Somers brings her new show Things That Do Not C(o)unt to Vault Festival. A daring and bold feminist one-woman play, it explores female sexuality and body issues unabashedly. She takes her audience on a partially autobiographical journey through Poland and London, stretching the boundaries of language and writing, and alternating vulnerability to irreverence in her raw monologues.

Spoken poetry and movement pieces sprinkle her train of though, creating a dynamic pace that alternates Polish and English. Even though the unspoken interludes seem to overrun at times preventing the show to fully soar, the shifts in tone and Somer's acute grip on her listeners move it along smoothly.

Images of her past are haunting in their melancholic nature: the changes of season in Poland, her grandmother's kitchen, kissing boys in fields are all memories muddled with the agony of growing up. "I've been on a diet since she was 10" she admits, weaving a fil rouge through the whole work.

She paints this relationship with food with vivid strokes, portraying all the torment of a life spent living with an eating disorder. Grapefruits and sweets inhabit the stage as well as a dead fish submerged in water and pearls. All refer to womanhood and the strife for it, working as icons for the performer.

A dichotomy between who one is and who society wants one to be emerges fairly soon. The craving for sexual identity and the need to be wanted tower over young girls from a very young age, leading them to acquiesce to become someone they're not.

She conveys this helplessness in a powerful and breathtaking image as she is painfully torn between eating grapefruit (here a metaphor for the Platonic idea of femininity and sensuality) and devouring a slice of cake.

It's this plot line that hits the nail on the head. Instead of going off a tangent to explain the ugliness of the issue, she shows it in a visceral and honest way avoiding the glossy take this subject is usually given.

It's a show that's ultimately all about relationships: with family, boys, food, and oneself. It's about learning (and refusing to learn) how to be a woman and embracing recovery; it's also about how life has cruel ways to teach to discern between what is healthy and unhealthy.

Aided by Bj McNeill's direction, Things That Do Not C(o)unt becomes a universal exploration of existence and acceptance. Somers ends the challenging performance on a light note pouring vodka for the whole crowd on the notes of Polish music, lifting the spirits after taking them on such a dark adventure.

Things That Do Not C(o)unt runs at Waterloo East Theatre as part of Vault Festival until 18 March.

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