Hannah Werner
Nine steps. Nine different steps is what it takes for Sarah Isles, full-time stand-up comedian, to get divorced in the country of England. With this long, gloomy process still in the works, Iles takes you through her journey after filing for divorce from her husband of four years, and the up and down process that led to her current mentality of peace and happiness. The title of this performance, Decree Absolute Vodka, ties into her emotional reaction to her divorce for she, admittedly, stated she could tell she began drinking too much vodka because it was no longer done “sociably”. This is when she started to see her therapist, Pam. Pam is great. Happy and married for twenty-eight years, and giving the best advice to Iles throughout their time together. Pam’s main advice was to stay away from dating for a while. This advice was not taken by Iles. Partner after partner, story after story, we heard the dirty, hilarious, and bizarre situations she got herself into throughout the process of her divorce. With her later seeing a consistent pattern in the men she was seeing and the “ghosting” she would experience (“ghosting” is a modern term for someone disappearing from your life without any warning or verbal confirmation), Iles, confused and angry, decided to ask on social media if men ghosted women and why they did it. She received a lot of answers and found there were five top answers. This was my favorite part of the performance… We played a version of the game Family Fortunes (similar to the American Family Feud) to guess what these top five answers were. Separating into teams, we were able to establish the answers (which I will not give away!). This was very engaging and it felt like I was there with her, and although I haven’t been ghosted before, I can imagine the frustration that would come with that; especially after hearing what she found to be the top five reasons for why!
Throughout these experiences, Iles explained in the performance that she is past feeling sad about being single and receiving the comments like, “you’re single? Oh, you’re so brave” and “I’m so sorry, you must be so lonely”. Iles explained that her story is not over, but right now she is happy and content where she is at. When I heard that, I felt a strong feeling of joy for her. After hearing all she had said about her experiences, I felt relieved that she was doing well.
This stand-up performance was comical, honest, and slightly pornographic. It all tied together to make a hilarious performance that felt authentic and relatable in a sense that I understand how it feels to be a woman and the daily struggles we face. Occasionally there were references that I did not understand given the English/Scottish origin, but I got the main idea. Fortunately for me, I had an amusing time listening to her story. Unfortunately for her, the law has now been changed. It now only takes 6 steps to get divorced in England. She could have been divorced by now.