• Review For Us
  • List Your Show
  • Advertising
  • Musicals
  • Plays
  • Ballet & Dance
  • Previews
  • First Look
Theatre Weekly
  • Home
  • News
    • West End
    • Off-West End
    • Regional & Tours
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Digital Theatre
  • Tickets
    • Discounts
    • Musicals
    • Plays
    • Opera
    • Dance
    • Concerts
  • VAULT Festival 2023
    • VAULT Previews
    • VAULT Reviews
  • Contact Us
    • Join us as a Reviewer
No Result
View All Result
Theatre Weekly
  • Home
  • News
    • West End
    • Off-West End
    • Regional & Tours
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Digital Theatre
  • Tickets
    • Discounts
    • Musicals
    • Plays
    • Opera
    • Dance
    • Concerts
  • VAULT Festival 2023
    • VAULT Previews
    • VAULT Reviews
  • Contact Us
    • Join us as a Reviewer
No Result
View All Result
Theatre Weekly
No Result
View All Result
Home Reviews
Sluts With Consoles at VAULT Festival

Sluts With Consoles at VAULT Festival

VAULT Festival Review: Sluts With Consoles

“Sluts with Consoles is an enjoyable commentary around the stereotypes of women in gaming”

by Lyla Maeve
March 18, 2023
Reading Time: 3 mins read

Sluts with Consoles is the first show from grassroots feminist theatre company Dogmouth Theatre, and an accurate depiction of the two male-gazed Gamer Girl archetypes. Alice Robb is Player 1, performing the traits of what Japanese media would describe as moe – adorable, almost too youthful, playing on easy mode. Alice Flynn is Player 2 – “not like other girls”, treated as one of the boys until she takes off her metaphorical helmet.

Set up as a multi-level video game on a TV screen, the main bulk of the story involves enactments of the typical Gamer Girl life-cycle, from both the players’ singular and shared point-of-view. Starting with the gift-giving of a Nintendo Wii on their 8th birthday, the characters then reach adolescence, sexualisation and the ability to be patriarchally judged. Once the GamerGate scandal in 2014 highlights the inequalities and harassment of the gaming industry, the protagonists become divided, as the conditions of being a Gamer Girl through the eyes of men prove a no-win situation.

Interspersed between those “levels” are meta-dialogues between the two players. It’s this format that marks the show’s biggest flaw. The differences between Robb’s sex-object streamer and Flynn’s disillusioned tomboy are nigh-on irrelevant until the characters reach adulthood, as the main narrative switches from a shared perspective to Player 2’s sole point-of-view.

       

During one such dialogue just before the diverge, the now-sentient TV calls out: “Why are you talking to each other between levels? This is not your prerogative.” When that moment happened during my showing, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was wondering “why?” until they themselves said “why?” – then they immediately addressed the “why”. The setup just needs added context, otherwise the dialogues end up seeming like filler.

Despite that, and the repetitive cries of “it’s a video game! It’s not real!” padding the script, the show is awesome. Flynn and Robb are vibrant and energetic performers – during a scene based on the game Call of Duty, Flynn dons a balaclava and sprints around the Studio, flinging themselves onto audience members and making me flinch as I dread getting hit on the head by a toy gun. I also want to shout out the technician that night, who did an absolutely remarkable job given my performance was their second ever show doing tech.

You mightalso like

Melonade at VAULT Festival

VAULT Festival Review: Melonade

Vault Festival

VAULT Festival celebrates a record breaking year as it closes its doors for the last time in its original home

To sum things up, Sluts with Consoles is an enjoyable commentary around the stereotypes of women in gaming, flawed by a script that often verges on basic and an indecisive perspective. Many gamers use multiple screens to play, and the Sluts with Consoles experience would be greatly enhanced with that – one for both players.

VAULT Festival 2023 runs Tuesday 24th January to Sunday 19th March, full listings and ticket information can be found here.

This review was written by a participant of the VAULT Festival New Critics Programme in partnership with Theatre Weekly. For more information about the VAULT Festival New Critics Programme, and all of our 2023 participants, please visit: https://vaultfestival.com/new-critics-programme/

Lyla Maeve

Lyla Maeve

Lyla Maeve (she/they) is a multidisciplinary creative specialising in writing, photography, social media management and content production. They are a recent graduate of D&AD’s prestigious Shift night school, winning a speculative pitch for Adidas and also working on briefs for Guinness and Penguin.

Related Articles

Melonade at VAULT Festival
Reviews

VAULT Festival Review: Melonade

Vault Festival
News

VAULT Festival celebrates a record breaking year as it closes its doors for the last time in its original home

Gush at VAULT Festival
Reviews

VAULT Festival Review: Gush

Grey Widow at VAULT Festival
Reviews

VAULT Festival Review: Grey Widow

Poison Hate and Vitriol at VAULT Festival
Reviews

VAULT Festival Review: Poison, Hate and Vitriol

Earth to Kurt at VAULT Festival
Reviews

VAULT Festival Review: Earth to Kurt

Twitter Facebook Youtube Instagram

At Theatre Weekly we give theatre a new audience. You'll find our theatre news, theatre reviews and theatre interviews are written from an audience point of view. Our great value London theatre tickets will get you the best deal for your theatre tickets.
Theatre Weekly, 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX
  • Join Our Community
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Contact Us
  • Advertising

Recent News

Kirsty Patrick Ward

Interview: Kirsty Patrick Ward on Strike! at Southwark Playhouse

Luke Newton and Amber Anderson

Initial Casting Announced For The First Major Revival In 20 Years Of Neil Labute’s The Shape Of Things

© 2022 Theatre Weekly

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Tickets
  • Digital Theatre
  • News
    • West End
    • Off West End
    • Regional & Tours
    • Digital
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • VAULT Festival 2023
    • Vault Previews
    • VAULT Reviews
  • Contact Us
    • Join us as a Reviewer

© 2022 Theatre Weekly