Post by Steve on Sept 14, 2023 22:56:58 GMT
Saw this Tuesday night, and liked it alot. It's about a date night in which a woman burns a man repeatedly by not censoring her thoughts.
Some spoilers follow. . .
This is a transfer from the Edinburgh Festival.
Soho Theatre feels like the perfect place for this, as this is where Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge used to put on shows about women proving they could be just as unflinchingly sociopathic as men lol (eg The One, Fleabag, Touch).
The difference between this and those shows is that in those shows, the women were hilariously and unapologetically total dicks. But this protagonist absolutely hates herself, behind her searing cutting honesty, so it's more masochism than sadism.
This protagonist's insistence that she is "dank and ugly" is upsetting, and although Letty Thomas is stupendous in the role, slicing through her date partner, Archie Backhouse, herself and life in general at every turn with dazzling, forceful and frequently humorous turns of phrase, objectively, Letty Thomas ISN'T those things, more like the opposite of those things.
So we must conclude that this is a "what if" play, whereby the what-if is "what if the irrational self-hating voice was given free reign to speak out loud?"
And the answer is that while not objectively believable behaviour, it's a very funny and worthwhile expression of the way irrational self-critical thoughts work.
Of course, the alternate viewpoint would be that the protagonist is objectively supposed to be "dank and ugly," as offensive and impossible as that is in a world where such things are not universally true for all observers. In that case, this is a badly cast Neil LaBute play, whereby a dank and ugly woman cuts herself up to get in ahead of the man cutting her up, and finds some kind of solace in getting there first.
I take the former view, but whichever view you take, this play expresses an original voice in which dark and believable thoughts are expressed out loud in an expressionistic and non-credible way.
Ultimately, Miriam Battye's voice feels alive and exciting, though I would diagnose her protagonist with a course of Jones/Waller-Bridge rampant egotism to alleviate her pain lol.
3 and a half stars for a wonderful character and voice, who just needs to interact more believably to generate even more laughs and bite.
Some spoilers follow. . .
This is a transfer from the Edinburgh Festival.
Soho Theatre feels like the perfect place for this, as this is where Vicky Jones and Phoebe Waller-Bridge used to put on shows about women proving they could be just as unflinchingly sociopathic as men lol (eg The One, Fleabag, Touch).
The difference between this and those shows is that in those shows, the women were hilariously and unapologetically total dicks. But this protagonist absolutely hates herself, behind her searing cutting honesty, so it's more masochism than sadism.
This protagonist's insistence that she is "dank and ugly" is upsetting, and although Letty Thomas is stupendous in the role, slicing through her date partner, Archie Backhouse, herself and life in general at every turn with dazzling, forceful and frequently humorous turns of phrase, objectively, Letty Thomas ISN'T those things, more like the opposite of those things.
So we must conclude that this is a "what if" play, whereby the what-if is "what if the irrational self-hating voice was given free reign to speak out loud?"
And the answer is that while not objectively believable behaviour, it's a very funny and worthwhile expression of the way irrational self-critical thoughts work.
Of course, the alternate viewpoint would be that the protagonist is objectively supposed to be "dank and ugly," as offensive and impossible as that is in a world where such things are not universally true for all observers. In that case, this is a badly cast Neil LaBute play, whereby a dank and ugly woman cuts herself up to get in ahead of the man cutting her up, and finds some kind of solace in getting there first.
I take the former view, but whichever view you take, this play expresses an original voice in which dark and believable thoughts are expressed out loud in an expressionistic and non-credible way.
Ultimately, Miriam Battye's voice feels alive and exciting, though I would diagnose her protagonist with a course of Jones/Waller-Bridge rampant egotism to alleviate her pain lol.
3 and a half stars for a wonderful character and voice, who just needs to interact more believably to generate even more laughs and bite.
