Learn more about Maria Teresa Creasey’s bold new show
BY VEE WILSON, IMAGE PROVIDED BY ARTIST
A woman is bound and gagged, face down on the floor. It’s surely the strangest way to start a show as the audience is forced to step over a seemingly lifeless body just to get to the seats at the back of a somewhat dilapidated bunker. It’s creepy, to say the least, and unsettling – a test of how comfortable you are with complicity. People laugh nervously at the situation, immediately put on edge by the opening scene. Then, in a jolt of absurdity, the woman springs to life, signalling for an audience member to rip off her gag and free her from the ropes.
It’s a bizarre introduction to Maria Teresa Creasey, the star of the one-woman show. You might recognise her from Doctor Who: The War Doctor (2025), Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024), and Loki (2023), but here she presents herself in a far rawer, funnier, and defiantly uncomfortable way. It’s a bold start that sets the tone for the chaos, comedy, and confrontation of gender expectations that is to come.
Someone bravely sets her free; they seem confused and apprehensive, perhaps scared even, but the show begins. Maria goes on to use character comedy, audience participation, and props to explore the feelings that come with getting older as a woman, and the societal pressures and stereotypes that exist alongside it. Why is it that men are deemed more distinguished as they get older, but women become “hags” as they age? Well, Maria cleverly weaves together these different forms of comedy to explore how these patriarchal double standards have turned women into monsters.
The vampire has long been used to explore societal responses to many taboo or controversial topics, from homosexuality and the AIDS crisis, to disease, addiction, and the capitalist class. Here, Maria uses the figure of the vampire as a way to explore the societal anxieties around ageing, asking why it is that society has become so obsessed with maintaining youth. By utilising pop culture references (and some more niche ones too) from the horror genre, she pokes fun at the way that women are represented and the roles that they are placed in based on their age. From sexy vampires to wicked witches and mean old hags, Maria confronts what it means to be an ageing woman in today’s society, ultimately reclaiming these monstrous female archetypes as powerful rather than shameful.
It’s uncomfortable at times, but by design. Maria prompts you to sit in that discomfort and to question this societal pressure put on women – an act so important for dismantling these ideas. Even if you don’t identify with cis womanhood, these pressures will resonate with anyone policed by gender expectations. These aren’t niche concerns, but battles fought by many gender non-conforming individuals, too. Thinking about that woman who is bound and gagged at the beginning of the show, do we continue letting women be silenced and restricted by patriarchal norms, or do we help release them from that imprisonment?
It’s a truly hilarious yet thought-provoking experience. Those who feel slightly uncomfortable with audience participation might avoid the show, but if you’re up to challenging your thinking and trying something new, then it’s definitely worth attending. Beneath the surface, and beneath the humour, is a deeply moving and powerful expression of womanhood today and a clear defiance of gender normativity. If the hilarious comedy, brilliant acting, and bold audience participation doesn’t entice you, who could resist a blood-drenched Maria belting Shania Twain’s Man! I Feel Like a Woman!? In the end, this show proves that the real horror isn’t a blood-soaked vampire, it’s the societal fear of women who refuse to shrink with age.
Keep an eye out for future work from the creators of the show at the This Is Not A Test Instagram page and website.
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