★★★★★
Deus Ex Femina. Goodwood Theatre and Studios. 11 Mar 2026
The Damage is Done makes a welcome return season for those who have missed it.
Words. They have a history in meaning. When it comes to damage, irrevocable destruction fits etymologically applied to the life of Isadora and sister Chris’s dual life secrets which tear their family apart.
Isadora (Katherine Sortini) is a highly intelligent fish-out-of-water personality. Wrapped up in a tight, very large, extremely eccentric Italian family in which she half fits in. It’s her mother’s 50th birthday celebration through which Isadora introduces the audience to herself and family and ensuing shock fall outs during that event.
Sortini creates a mother who’s an outwardly modern, fashion conscious (in a rather not so good Catholic way), Tik Tok using woman, who is simultaneously somehow a very traditional Italian Catholic woman. Her sister Chris is the favourite child, married to Marcus, a bobble head collecting nerd, not perfect, weird. But her parents are glad she is at least married.
Sortini’s writing portrays these characters in rich, delightfully, comically caustic language. This illuminates a cheeky, warm confidence in Isadora. Her family and extended families’ flaws are celebrated as much as looked askance at.
This contrasts with deeper, long-lasting inner identity worries within Isadora. Exposing to us the awkward kid adoring a school girlfriend in a way she doesn’t quite understand. Living a life her family know nothing of.
It is when the birthday celebration is interrupted by police arresting Chris’ husband Marcus, things go downhill. Pedophilia is the charge.
The Damage is Done in effect is two stories in which two siblings face different responses from their family and the greater world to irrevocable damage from being associated with an ‘evil’, but more sadly in Isadora’s case, being who she truly is. Gay.
No matter how dark the abyss Isadora and her sister fall into, the story remains grounded in comic expression.
Rejection. Disownment. Denial. Confusion. These come from all corners of life. It is in words, knowing their meaning that Isadora is able to partly find a way back.
Sortini’s performance is electric start to finish. With one chair, superb lighting and sound score, she imbues a production handling such deeply sensitive issues with insightful clarity an audience can consider with empathy as much as humour.
It is a confronting work. In a deeply human way. One in which judgement is superseded by lighted pathways of understanding.
David O’Brien
When: 11 to 15 Mar
Where: Goodwood Theatre and Studios
Bookings: Closed
