THE Vagina Monologues grew from small beginnings to become a global phenomenon, performed in 50 languages in 140 countries. Now Eve Ensler's short, shocking new play makes its low-key debut in a Leeds rehearsal studio as part of the West Yorkshire Playhouse's A Play, A Pie And A Pint season.

Not that a pre-show pie and a pint will settle well when buffeted and shaken by Tony Award winner Ensler's half hour of darkness seeking the light, as the One Billion Rising campaigner to end violence against women depicts a young, nameless woman's perilous journey towards freedom.

Beginning in the dark and only rarely more than dimly lit by Paul Lovett, Mark Rosenblatt's intense, claustrophobic, airless production confronts the audience with the horror of a woman secreted away on a cargo ship, seeking to escape from human trafficking and a life of poverty and sexual abuse in a container of over-ripe avocados. Sometimes, she can hear the cry of a baby; other times, the crashing thud of "the whackers", a dissonant, disturbing symbol of the abuse she has suffered.

What the woman has experienced is graphically described; what she is fretfully fearing could be going on around her, constantly terrified by the prospect of being discovered, is distressing too, her senses battered, her disorientation heightened by Mic Pool's clattering soundscape.

Reminiscent of confessional Greek tragedies and Samuel Beckett's minimalist bleak monologues, Avocado is confrontational, jolting "tornado theatre" that is as spent as actress Rebecca Grant after 30 torrid, horrid minutes.

 

Avocado, Barber Studio, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, tonight at 7pm. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk. Please note: a panel discussion will follow the performance.