It’s 2024. We can talk about anything now, can’t we?
Well yes and no. There are still some things that people don’t really discuss – or if they do it’s only in the most oblique of ways.
And one of those things is menstruation.
I bet plenty of men think women talk about little else, but nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, they’ll moan about cramps and the cost of sanitary products – but do they ever really discuss the often gory, frequently messy and sometimes horrific details of periods? Like the pain of childbirth (which a midwife once described to me as “discomfort”), menstrual problems are played down. Women are expected to put up with them. It can’t be that bad, can it? We’re all in the same boat.
What’s not acknowledged is just how much women’s experiences of being in that boat can differ. For some women periods are indeed just a bit of a nuisance. They’re the lucky ones. For thousands menstruation means agony, not just once a month but sometimes all month. Sacha (Hannah Mary Taylor) is one of those women. In Noemie Galante’s The Spilling Cup Sacha tells her unembellished story.
Like most young girls, Sacha didn’t know much about periods. Her primary school teacher told her it would be “just a drop of blood”. Her mother’s generation would talk about “a visit from Auntie Flo”, “The Crimson Tide” or “That time of the month”.
‘Why are women so ashamed?’
Advertising for period products is notoriously coy. Women play tennis or cavort across fields, their happiness credited solely to the perfect tampon. A shot glass of blue fluid is poured to impress us with a pad’s absorbency. If we were wondering why there’s a teapot on the table in Sacha’s room, we soon find out when she demonstrates the kind of ‘flow’ real women have to deal with. That’s no flow – it’s a deluge.
At the age of 13 Sacha’s periods start, and she’s already asking,
‘Am I making a fuss?’
Because women aren’t supposed to complain. If you can’t cope with cramps, are you maybe just not very good at coping with life? It’s no good asking your schoolfriends what’s normal. Nobody knows, nor are they prepared to go into detail. When Sacha complains about her crippling pains and huge blood loss, the other girls empathise and complain about their own experiences – but then she sees a friend running about, her own sister going to parties, having fun,
‘She can do daily life, even have sex. I feel like I’m being repeatedly stabbed. Is she a bitch or am I just weak?’
When all she can do is stay in bed, Sacha’s Mum tells her she won’t get a man like that. As women we are trained to be cheerful, uncomplaining, stoic; men don’t want miserable girlfriends!
Sacha begins to convince herself that she’s the one at fault. We see her self-confidence crumble. She feels pathetic, nauseous, exhausted from lack of sleep, jealous of other girls. It’s not only her body that’s suffering. Her mental health is faltering in tandem with her womb. She no longer believes in her own ability to judge pain levels. She must be getting it all wrong. Everyone else can live with it, so why can’t she? In Taylor’s body language, her hunched shoulders, her bowed head, we see defeat, powerlessness and despair.
Stuck at home, Sacha reads us extracts from a romantic novel. She watches raunchy Netflix films. They’re all ridiculous nonsense and Sacha knows it, but they’re not as harmless as they may at first seem. Narratives like these tell women that to have great sex/true happiness all they need to do is find a handsome, domineering and well-endowed stud. It’s worth staying with controlling, even violent, men because the sex is good. These are dangerous messages.
As things get worse, Sacha becomes locked into a cycle of bleeding, pain, laundry, and brief snatches of sleep (lying on a towel.) She rushes round her room, frantically trying to keep up with this uncompromising regime. Taylor conveys Sacha’s increasing panic and desperation very well. She’s a woman with nowhere to turn, dealing with things that the world tells us must be kept private, hidden. If she had flu she could blame a virus, but period pain? Other woman don’t complain, do they?
Sacha decides to see her (male) GP. He’s patronising, gives her a painful pelvic examination (so realistically acted that every woman in the room will be gritting her teeth). He concludes that’s there’s nothing really wrong. She’s either taking the pill irregularly or she’s constipated. (Spoiler: neither is true.)
Last year a survey of 3,000 women and girls for the Wellbeing of Women charity found that they were often dismissed as ‘just having a period’, despite experiencing severe pain, heavy bleeding and irregular cycles that could lead to mental health problems.* GPs have often had little training in this area. It doesn’t fit any of their templates. It’s just a ‘women’s thing.’
Returning to her Netflix films, Sacha notes that these fictional women often think the (alleged) supersize of their partners will make sex painful – but of course it never is, it’s just fabulous! And it’s only now that Sacha begins to wonder if sex isn’t supposed to be painful. We can feel Sacha’s sense of panic as she frantically Googles the subject,
‘Is sex not meant to hurt? I always feel like I’m being impaled.’
The information she finds is shattering. None of the things she’s been suffering. Painful sex, blood clots, exhaustion, excruciating pain, are normal. She’s not weak, her GP was wrong, it’s not ‘all in her head.’
‘I feel out of words. I feel out of thought. I feel out of energy.’
Sacha manages to see a female doctor, someone who finally gets it, who confirms that none of this is in any way “normal”. For the first time she is offered a possible medical diagnosis: endometriosis. She’s delighted; a diagnosis will mean a solution, right?
What happens next will be familiar to so many women who’ve been in this situation. There’s no miracle cure, often there’s no obvious diagnosis. In the short term, what changes is Sacha’s understanding of her pain. The knowledge that your symptoms are real, that you’re not weak, incapable, silly or neurotic, will not take the pain away, but what it can do is empower you. Period pain and other extreme menstrual issues are not figments of the imagination. They are part of a hidden disability and need to be recognised as such.
At the end of The Spilling Cup Sacha has begun to make peace with her womb, and to recognise that she is at least as strong as any other woman. In fact, she’s stronger.
The Spilling Cup addresses an immensely important subject. It not only lifts the veil on women’s physical suffering, but also shows just how damaging menstrual problems can be to their mental health. It’s an unusually honest depiction of an issue that’s still so often ignored, sidelined and sanitised.
Hannah Mary Taylor’s solo performance is outstanding, so much so that I wondered at times if she was recounting her own experiences. Her communication skills are excellent. There is no actorly-ness in her acting, she simply tells it like it is.
The Spilling Cup is a Dracume Theatre production. It is directed by James Wood, who is also co-founder of the company. Lighting design is by Jack Read, sound by Danny Menzies. Dracume was founded in 2022 as a platform to uplift overlooked voices and give up-and-coming creatives professional level experience. Dracume acknowledges valuable assistance from Queen Margaret University’s Emerging Creatives Fund.
This show is considered suitable for audiences aged 16+.
The Spilling Cup is at Venue 53, theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall (Stephenson Theatre) at 15.05 every day until 24th August. Tickets here.
*Anna Bawden: ‘Millions of women in UK face severe period pain but symptoms dismissed, survey finds’ The Guardian, 14 September 2023.
