Melbourne Fringe: Pillow Fight

Seduction. Power. Truth. Melbourne Fringe Festival starts off with a provocative and thought-provoking start with the masterful Pillow Fight. It is a new show that unpacks and conceptualises the nuances and tensions of consent. On stage till Saturday 8 October at Gasworks Arts Park, performers Cameron Grant and Monique Warren show off their superb acting chops when they play out a one-night stand mired in doubt and confusion, and question whether the sex was consensual. 

Pillow Fight opens at a 21st birthday party held for Hen, a law student bathed in privileged and trapped in a man’s corporate world. Gasping for an escape, she exits her party – climbing through a window – and heads to the local inner-city pub and finds Rob, a fellow law student who ditched his farm inheritance to pursue a life of learning and law. An already-buzzed Hen enjoys some banter with Rob, and the pair play a game a darts. A bottle of champagne later, Rob invites Hen to his place. Hen accepts. They arrive at his house. Hen says she wants to get changed and go to bed. Hen gets naked. Rob then makes a move on Hen. The rest is a blur. 

Did Rob win their game of their darts, or did he let Hen win? Why did Hen brush her teeth? Was the sex consensual? These are some of the questions plaguing Hen when she wakes up. The pair try to re-trace their steps, and a battle of rival truths ensue where whoever emerges victorious is the one in control. 

‘The play looks at what happens to both the involved parties, when non-consensual sex takes place in the short term, and also in the long term … How often have we seen stories that convey women as withdrawn, coy and passive? Those same stories present men as strong, forceful and the owners of the world we all inhabit. How often do we interrupt those depictions, and how often do we examine their consequences?’ explains playwright Laura Lethlean. 

Pillow Fight is an absorbing, honest and raw exploration of consent. It serves as a reminder that consent can change at any point, and that the narrative of “oh, but you came to my house, so that means x y z” is totally redundant. Monique Warren is a star grappling with the events of the night and successfully expresses how the character of Hen lives in a man’s world because she is deemed attractive by the men around her. When she lamented that people know of her, rather than know her, hit hard. Cameron Grant does well to unpack pre-existing narratives around hetero sexual dynamics. 

Pillow Fight is worth a watch – don’t miss it! 

Pillow Fight
On stage till Saturday 8 October 2022
Gasworks Theatre, 21 Graham Street, Albert Park, 3206
melbournefringe.com.au/event/pillow-fight