REVIEW These Roots are Made for Walking at Canal Café Theatre 11 – 15 February 2025
‘These Roots are Made for Walking is a unique anthropology of 3 feminist and queer stories that only leaves us wanting to hear more.’ ★★★★
3 performers, 3 different women, 3 different stories in time and place.
From London during the 2nd world war, through the very first Dyke March in Washington D.C. to an exotic dancer accused of collaboration in Paris, the audience is swiftly transported into each setting. With minimal props or set design, the performers all succeed in grasping us into the lives of these women, ultimately in search of freedom, meaning and justice. They move between humour, joy and tragedy striking us with a play full of emotions and poetic imagery. Thrown amidst a moving goodbye dance, a crazy declaration of love through karaoke, or a very funny exotic dance, there is no time in this piece to feel disengaged.
Emily Wollenberg, creator of Unearthed Theatre Company, opens the show with ‘She’, a story of impossible queer love in 1941 in London. Told with a delicate tone and heartfelt humour, this hidden love story set in an artillery factory reminds us both of the fate of women during the war – which is often too little talked about – and the hopelessness of an unthinkable love. Caro Vinden swoops in with incredible energy in her play ‘Lesbians Eat Fire’ which transports us effortlessly, with a selection of 90s hits and an electric dance sequence, to the heart of New York City where the Lesbian Avengers fight for lesbian visibility and battle the AIDS crisis. Joanne falls in love with a woman she saw speaking at a Dyke March, and as she throws herself impulsively and passionately in this new world we can’t help but fall in love with her too. In the third act, Isabel Hees incarnates the mystic Mata Hari, and tells us with flair and wit a story of survival, of a woman pursuing her own freedom, and inevitably, the fatal consequences of it. Isabel carries this third part brilliantly and gives the show a poignant end.
Why the choice of these 3 women in particular? Firstly, even though the stories are dated, the relevance of this play today is obvious both for the feminist and LGBTQ+ communities. And ultimately, as Isabel Hees says it in the end, there are so many untold stories of women - looked over, imprisoned or even murdered - that deserve justice. This show is for them.
These Roots Are Made For Walking, a new play by Unearthed Theatre Company
Canal Cafe Theatre, Little Venice
7 p.m. Feb. 11th, 13th, 14th, and 15th
