Amity Dry – Fortified

Fortified is a powerful, ‘wakeup call’ piece of theatre. Amity Dry does not disappoint in her latest theatre offering. Raw and open hearted, she bravely touches the audience’s souls with her exposé on divorce and the fallout from “blowing shit up” in your life. Her vocals are strong and the songs, most of which she has written, come from the heart-a broken one at that. She has a stunning voice and the messages in the songs will remain with you well after the show is over.

Amity Dry opens her ‘in the round’ performance dressed in camouflage gear; battle ready, complete with diva-esque skirt. She immediately launches her first missile at the audience, talking openly about the events leading up to her divorce and the courage it took to fight this battle. She says she “didn’t want to go to war”, because change is scary. She talks of how we fall into the “princess dream” of being with someone who will, we think, care for us and make us who we are destined to be. We dull down who we really are, forgetting who we were and feeling afraid of change. This is powerful stuff. Domestic violence and emotional and financial control are also addressed with intelligence and empathy.

Not all of the show is coming from a tortured place-there are also some extremely funny moments, but these too, if the outer onion layers are peeled away, have tears below. She sings about Tinder and the trials of dating at 40- funny but at the same time poignant, as comment is made about the superficial judgements ‘app dating’ involves. She says, humorously, “I’ve swiped all of Adelaide.”

The take-away message from this show is that we are strong women. Divorce, according to Dry, “changes the shape of you”, but it needn’t be an end. We need to say “no” to bad relationships without fear of what will happen to us. We can be our real selves.

Through poignant and powerful songs and clever, revealing monologues this amazing 40-year old tells us if it’s not good, then “blow shit up”- be ‘fortified’.

This is a stunning show. Do not miss it.

Shelley Hampton

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