Ugly Mugs, for those who aren’t familiar, is the name of a pamphlet that sex workers distribute to identify and warn each other about the violent, dangerous or abusive clients they encounter while working.
In the case of the play by the same name, the pamphlet is used to graphically illustrate an interwoven story of a murdered sex worker who met one such mug, a rebellious and reckless young girl who disappears and the teenage boy who was the last one seen with her.
Written by Peta Brady using her own experiences as an outreach worker in Melbourne’s red light district of St Kilda, it tells the stories of those who fall through the cracks of society. It is an emotionally raw look at the broader topic of violence against women and its wider ramifications and the realities of life we all too easily look away from. Though the play is not based on any one person’s story, the truths are there.
It doesn’t take much searching to find out how writer and actress Brady has been affected by those she meets as a mobile outreach worker, distributing needles and condoms, and providing counsel to those who work the streets of St Kilda.
Brady was in the middle stages of developing Ugly Mugs when the murder of sex worker Tracy Connelly made the news. Brady was one of the last to see Connelly alive and was heavily impacted by her death. The death of Kelly Hodge, another sex worker who was murdered in 2003, left Brady shocked at the limited media coverage and cemented the idea for the play.
It is clear through Brady’s storytelling and, indeed in her performance as the anonymous woman who has been murdered, that these are stories that have touched her, and that she feels a duty to tell.
The play begins in the morgue as a coroner sets about performing a post-mortem on a murdered street worker. As he clinically describes the autopsy of her body, the ghost of Brady’s character rises and starts talking, telling the coroner to “cut around her feelings”. She idly chats to him with a disquieting cheerfulness, recounting in frank terms her life on the street, the men she has met and the details from the attack that places her on the table.
Brady does a great job of seamlessly blending grim humour with the haunting tale of a woman with a story that has been reduced to some scribbles on the wall in her memory. It’s not a coincidence that both the victims and perpetrators in this play remain nameless and anonymous.
Another stand out in the play is Adelaide-born actress Sara West who plays the reckless teenager on a fast-forward to her tragic fate. Her story, and the fate her and of the boy she crosses paths with, examines the actions we take that lead to our inevitable outcomes.
The second story doesn’t punch quite as hard as the first, and Brady’s second role as the teen boy’s mother proves somewhat confusing. The disconnect between the two stories is the one loose thread of the work that is otherwise a play full of impact, a haunting look at the realities that our society finds easier to ignore than confront, a world that is too easy to look away.
Ugly Mugs is Brady’s way of shedding light on the culture of silencing violence against women on the streets, and to challenge the often all but ignored support for, and protection of those women.
A co-production between Malthouse Theatre and Griffin Theatre Company, Ugly Mugs is directed by Marion Potts and makes its Sydney debut with Brady co-starring alongside West, Steve Le Marquand, and Harry Borland.
Ugly Mugs is now playing at the SBW Stables Theatre in Kings Cross until August 23. Buy tickets here.