two thirds (2015)
24 hours, 9 friends, 5 years worth of tension…Two Thirds weaves its way back through the 5 years after graduation to the party that once felt like the last time nothing had a consequence. The same group of friends reunite once a year at Christmas. Old tensions are covered up with tinsel, as the friends try their best to eat, drink and be merry, while the threat of all that’s left unsaid hangs like an awkward bauble. Much like real life, or a drunk 21 year old, the play ricochets between laughter, tears and vomit. Though the characters may graduate from drinking games to playing the game of being ‘grown ups’, they still struggle with the consequences of what they have done to each other, and the devastation of what can’t be undone.
TWO THIRDS was first performed in February 2015 at Homerton College Cambridge, co-directed by Emily and Miranda Slade, and produced by Kennedy Bloomer. The play enjoyed a week's run including two sell out performances. Following this success, Emily applied to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and secured a place to perform TWO THIRDS at C Venues for 3 weeks. The show was adapted significantly for its fringe run, with drastic changes being made to both the script and the staging. Once again she worked with Miranda Slade to give the play a new lease of life specifically for the Fringe setting. They were overjoyed with the result and enjoyed excellent reviews and sell out shows during our time in Edinburgh.
TWO THIRDS was written in 2014, during Emily's second year at university. This 60 minute play very purposefully engaged with the issue of consent and sexual assault. This was (and still is) a serious issue at her university and affected far too many people that she knew. Emily wanted to look at the perpetrators of sexual assault - how they are or aren't able to process what they have done. In particular, after reading Carina Kolodny's The Conversation You Must Have With Your Sons she wanted to engage with a perpetrator who didn't fulfil the stereotypical expectation of a rapist. Instead she wanted to explore the much more complex and scary reality in which the lack of education and discussion surrounding consent creates an environment in which someone could become a rapist without setting out to be one, and the consequences this would have. At the time that Emily wrote the play, two thirds of sexual assaults were perpetrated by someone known to the survivor. The proportion has since risen.