The production is the cause is the charity is the cause is the production.

What do I mean (I’m partially asking myself that question as I do go off into my own sphere at times and my blogs tend to be an immediate download, without discrimination, of my internal meanderings).

I guess I mean it’s hard to talk about one without the other. Each feeds into the other and all comes together to highlight the work of Greater Manchester Rape Crisis & Sexual Abuse Support Centre (GMRC), who have been supporting people for 45 years this year.

Vignettes at Contact, Mcr, on 4 and 5 October, was a commemoration, a celebration, a validation and a manifestation of all the life stories and people who GMRC help, have helped and sadly, will help, in time.

It as a protestation against any notion that rape is the fault of anyone other than the perpetrator themselves. That if certain precautions aren’t taken, behaviours not adopted, that it is an inevitability that rape is the consequence.

Greater Manchester Rape Crisis began as a feminist collective responding to the needs of women who shared their experiences of sexual violence. It is now a registered charity providing vital services for women and girls throughout Greater Manchester and beyond.

Listen, Believe, Support

This is their mission statement. Promises they make to anyone who comes to them and, continuing in the spirit of awareness, I’d like to break this down further here in my blog.

GMRC say

Listen – Women who have experienced sexual abuse often feel misunderstood and unheard.

Believe – You might be worried that people won’t believe you and that you will be blamed for what happened.

Support – Women who have experienced sexual abuse often feel misunderstood and unheard.

They say ‘we understand and appreciate the courage it can take to access support’. I urge all to visit the site at http://www.manchesterrapecrisis.co.uk to learn more about the work that GMRC do, how they support those who need them, and should you need it, take note of their helpline: 0161 273 4500.

Now then, Wednesday night saw another joyful visit to Contact arts venue on Oxford Road. The curiously, eye-catchingly, wonderfully weird building that looks like an upside down castle, never fails to disappoint in taking me on a wild journey down a road of eclectic topics and artistic disciplines.

I’ve beatboxed, I’ve taken a grief walk, I’ve grooved, and on Wednesday I witnessed six short plays, or six vignettes, if you like, written by six local female playwrights, each celebrating GMRC and the work that they do.

Commissioned by the fabulous, HER Productions, a theatre company with a ‘female voice at the core’, writers, Debbie Oates, Maz Hedgehog, Lindsay Williams, Alex Keelan, Lekhani Chirwa and Zoe Iqbal and the wonderful actors (sorry to at this point to describe you as a collective – this will be redressed down the line) showed us what it was to, what sexual abuse looks like in a marriage layered with complications of cultural gender roles and expectations, what sexual abuse looks like in a lesbian partnership, when it’s happening to a parent…

When it’s something that has been hidden away, never spoken of.. A particularly heart breaking moment in the production is the depiction of a call coming into the helpline of an 80 year old woman who was raped by an uncle as a child. She’d never told anybody but needed to before she died.

The evening was punctuated by a series of uncomfortable headlines befitting of a time period, projected on the screen behind the stage. Each reminding us of the world context within women have had to live, almost giving permission for ‘casual’ abuse to be the norm.

It was additionally punctuated by a series of phone calls, each heralding another woman’s fight and devastation. Indeed, Lifelines, written by Debbie Oates and performed by the ‘needs no introduction’ that is the wonderful actor, Julie Hesmondhalgh), ‘Yvonne’ has made those phone calls herself. She’s been the one to hang up after one ring, after three rings. And now she rinds herself on the flip side, working on her anxiety in picking up the phone to someone who was once her, but knowing that this is exactly why she needs to pick up that phone.

Laughter and tears, light and shade – the two aren’t mutually exclusive and the writing managed to walk the line well, throughout the evening.

We had the wonderfully acerbic, no-holds barred, depiction of Mary. Mary was raped, Mary has much passion about the fight that women face against sexual abuse. But for all of Mary’s feisty opinions and sweary, delicious outbursts, Mary doesn’t leave her house. And this is sad. But also Vignettes makes room for this to be funny in a visual depction of a cardboard house, which an unseen actor crawls into and sits in, occasionally moving ‘the curtains’ aside, to yell out her point through the ‘window’.

We had a group of fine actors on that stage who danced, laughed, cried, delivered heartfelt monologues without missing a beat and even did downward dog, for goodness sake, whilst bringing the writers’ words to life and, most importantly, giving an important and powerful awareness to the cause, and the organisation that is, GMRC.

Happy anniversary GMRC and I wish there wasn’t the requirement for you to exist. But there is and Ii’m so very glad you do.

Where next

GMRC – https://www.manchesterrapecrisis.co.uk/

HER Productions – http://www.herproductions.co.uk/

Contact Mcr – https://contactmcr.com/

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The plays

Anger and Enthusiasm by Alex Keelan, directed by Kate Colgrave Pope, performed by Joyce Branagh and Ellie Campbell

Bhaijaan (Brother) by Zoe Iqbal, directed by Gitika Buttoo, performed by Jessica Kaur and Alex Hewitt

Burdens by Maz Hedgehog, directed by Ifeoma Uzo, performed by Krissi Bohn and Kelise Gordon-Harrison

Lifelines by Debbie Oates, directed by Bryony Shanahan, performed by Julie Hesmondhalgh

A Day in the Life by Lekhani Chirwa, directed by Amy Gavin, performed by Alicia Forde and Leah Baskaran

Broken by Lindsay Williams, directed by Ellie Rose, performed by Lois Mackie