“1 in 10 girls are sexually assaulted on campus but girls living at college are 7x more likely to experience rape. I wouldn’t be surprised if the number is actually higher – it is also chronically underreported.”

Sexual assault on campus is often a difficult topic to address in universities. Around university grounds and especially around residential colleges, this issue is often skirted around or sidestepped by groups of peers for fear of being ostracised.

On May 13 2021, Josephine Gazard endured what no university student should have to endure. While a Mother’s Day event at her residential college filled the university halls with music and laughter, she sat on the floor of her college dorm room with her mum reading through a victim impact statement following a sexual assault in her bedroom. Gazard described herself as “nineteen, furious, hurt [and] broken from [her] college experience.”

Exactly two years on, Gazard premiered her debut play “That’s What She Said,” a 90 minute solo show recounting her experience. In the post-show panel following opening night, Walkley Award-winning journalist Nina Funnell spoke of interviewing and talking to hundreds of victims of sexual assault on university campuses, many of whom had been further marginalised by the institutions from which they sought support. Yet for Gazard, writing this play was a way of taking ownership of her story and telling it her way. 

This play did not feel like a debut work, rather it felt incredibly mature and refined. Most importantly, it was incredibly powerful, both at a personal level and when placed in the broader context of a larger conversation. It was touching from start to finish. 

The show commenced with an opening monologue from Gazard, reflecting on the persona’s arrival in Sydney for University. She started discussing the fact that boys most certainly think about sex more than 18 times a day, as statistics suggest. Combined with anecdotes about the persona’s first classroom experiences, this was quite humorous. But underneath the comedy, Gazard was setting the scene for what was to come. 

This was a technique that Gazard used most effectively throughout the whole show. Although the subject matter of the play was incredibly serious, there were many moments of humour throughout the play. From short asides performed commandingly to longer stories about awkward high school meet-ups with boys, Gazard interspersed the unquestionably heavy material with a lot of incredibly funny lines which allowed the audience to remain completely engaged with the show. 

This was not the only example of technical brilliance displayed by Gazard in her writing, as the play was exceptionally well-crafted throughout. The chronology was not completely linear, allowing Gazard to situate the play within a state of mind rather than a strict time period. This enabled her to bring in material which spoke to the archetypal experience as well as the persona’s own experience, which further facilitated connection with the audience. 

The pacing of the show was also excellent, with Gazard ensuring that dialogue remained quick and snappy for the most part, which meant that some of the longer and more poignant moments really kept focus. Sustaining a 90 minute solo show is a very difficult feat, especially in a debut work, but the construction of the play meant that at no moment did the script feel laboured, which really was quite impressive. The ending of the play, which represented the cyclical nature of sexual violence on campus and the institutional responses, was well-thought out and extremely intelligent. 

But what really made the play was Gazard’s acting. With such a powerful script, it would be easy to let the play ‘do the talking’ but nothing could have been further from describing Gazard’s performance. She commanded the stage with the poise of a seasoned actor, whilst still managing to connect on a deep level with the persona in the play. While the play was of course incredibly personal to Gazard and this was evident, the play was performed with such conviction that it transcended the purely auto-biographical and instead, represented the story of so many who had passed through the university and college halls, which only made the show more powerful. Gazard used the space well and gave a performance that felt both incredibly polished and equally spontaneous. 

The attention to detail afforded by Gazard as well as Director Suzanne Millar and Producer Emily Buxton was also noticeable. The foregrounding of the college jumper as a symbol of identity was powerful as was the creation of setting. Aron Murray’s lighting and Rose Mulcare’s sound perfectly complimented Gazard’s work on stage. Ideally, some more space could have been given to the sound effects, which often spoke powerfully for themselves and did not require as much explanation but overall, all the technical elements were excellent. 

At the end of the play, there was not a dry eye in the house. This was a play that exposed the failures of the system, from the moments that led up to the assault through to the reporting that followed. It was a play that exposed the worst in humanity and the fact that such abuse so often goes unchecked. But most importantly, this was a play about the human spirit. But it was not a play that merely advanced a narrative of survival and life moving on. It was a narrative that focussed on the irreparable damage that trauma leaves and left some of the more uncomfortable moments unresolved. Because that was the real story. And everyone in the room knew it. 

From start to finish, this was a piece of technical brilliance, perfectly crafted and balanced. But combined with the raw emotion of Gazard’s exceptional acting performance, it transcended into something more than that. I do not use these words lightly but “That’s What She Said” is a masterpiece in every sense. Very rarely does theatre evoke such a visceral reaction from every person in the audience, but this play most certainly did. While it is most certainly a challenging watch, it is so compelling, and commendation must go to Gazard for producing such an exceptional work. This is not a work that should remain in development, this is a work that needs to be seen widely. I have no doubt this will not be last we hear of this outstanding piece of theatre. 

Rating: ★★★★★

That’s What She Said plays at the KXT Vault until 29th May. For more information, click here.

Photo credit: Christopher Starnawski