Amira Kingham’s La (The Feminine Definite Article) is touted as the journey of self-discovery of three female housemates who together must navigate the world of relationships before they can come to a true understanding of feminism.

The three central characters are quite different: there is Liv, the self-proclaimed sexpert who is taking the recent break-up of her three week relationship particularly badly; Andie, the seemingly aloof, typically studious virgin; and Kate, the trendy girl with the extreme-social-activist boyfriend Jasper and an affinity for gin. The play deals with the three girls navigating three very different relationships scenarios, and examines the varying ways in which men and women behave in their romantic and non-romantic pursuits.

Liv has taken up residence on the couch and amassed herself with an army of cried-into tissues, adopting the typical Hollywood tropes of the Recently Dumped Female. Kate has both the girls telling her how lucky she is to have a guy that is a feminist, but she can’t deal with Jasper’s extremism and copes by drinking lots of gin. Andie falls somewhere in between the continuum, ashamed of being a virgin but proud of what she has achieved without a man in her life. In an attempt to portray the different angles of what we know as gender-typical behaviours (and those in between), the characters unfortunately end up somewhat shallow and one-dimensional – as if we know exactly how they’re going to behave because of the narrow constraints they have been moulded into.

Credit goes to the cast for winning some deserved laughs throughout with strong performances, despite a script that read much too transparent and a plot that felt inorganic and messy. Perhaps this writer had expectations that a self-proclaimed comedy about feminism and relationships would inspire some thought or conversation. Unfortunately, La (The Feminine Definite Article) prompted neither. It builds on a fairly elementary understanding of feminism, reflected in discussions of girls only pretending to like video games for male attention and taking the piss out of self-help books that help Cosmo-reading women to “Get a Life, Get a Man”.

Ultimately, it’s not as if you’re sitting there wishing for La (The Feminine Definite Article) to end, but you’re not particularly impressed by it. You’re neither overwhelmed or underwhelmed watching this, you’re just “whelmed”.

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