The lyrics of Kate Miller-Heidke’s You’ve Underestimated Me, Dude provide an auspicious overture to The Street Company’s debut at Street Two of The Street Theatre.

Don’t Underestimate Me and The Tide is Turning become the battle cries of a new feminism, the strident, fiercely independent clarion call of a new generation of feminists.

In Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again., playwright Alice Birch is the uncompromising voice of a bold and defiant vanguard of women, defying the stereotype, questioning the injustice, demanding acknowledgement and espousing the doctrines of a new revolution.

In a series of short scenes, a couple (Hayden Splitt and Hyab Kerr) engage in a sexual struggle for assertive power; in another, a man (Damon Baudin) and a woman (Bronte Forrester) battle through a relationship’s conflicting expectations.

A male employer (Ash Hamilton-Smith) and female employee (Anneka van der Velde) play a cat and mouse game of bargaining strategy. The tragedy of generational consequence is powerfully presented as an abused grandmother (Forrester) confronts the ramifications of domestic violence on the behaviour of a daughter (van der Velde) and granddaughter (Kerr). Communication breaks down as men and women vie for supremacy on the battleground of gender warfare.

Familiarity might well turn us away from confronting the perpetual cycle of hierarchical male supremacy, unjust inequality and abusive domination, were it not for Birch’s astounding command of incisive language and her invasive ability to overturn complacency and compel attention.

The playwright is assisted in this by director Karla Conway’s deliberately forceful manifestation of physical gesture to imply control, rejection, attraction, conditioning and manipulation. It is a striking example of ensemble performance, each actor striving for clarity in word and action, while unveiling the deep inner layers of psyche and will. It makes for riveting, unapologetic theatre, played out by a youthful, passionate and committed company of artists dedicated to their art and their cause.

Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. is not comfortable theatre. Even in its traverse staging, audiences are challenged to view the reactions of audiences on the other side of the stage. On the wall, a manifesto for revolution urges a brave new world.

It is honest, and Birch and Conway urge us to view relationships and interaction from a new and inescapably thought-provoking perspective. It offers no solution, but it does warn that the tide is turning and that society, still shackled to patriarchal convention, would be advised not to underestimate the rising power of a new generation.

In the spirit of innovation and originality, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. is worth a visit.