I must admit that throughout the greater portion of this three act play/composite, my recurring thought was “?”. The first act centred around the dating and mating rituals of a young Californian girl who is pursued by various suitors. Fine. This particular concept was straight forward, if a little dull and poorly acted. The lead actresses entire emotive range appeared to feature regular hair preening and a strange lunging manoeuvre, presumably in desperation.
The problem with this first act was that it was completely without context and the actors struggled to give their characters any more than a two dimensional feeling. The entire act was a nebulous sketch of the relationship oeuvre.
However, the second and third acts were a very different story. The second act featured a dysfunctional family whose matriarch is having an affair with an invisible man. The situation naturally descends into a family in flux and resolves itself by the end of the act. Here the interesting parts were the conceptual ideas open to interpretation: female masturbation; Freudian comedy and sexual/ emotional obsession and jealousy. It must be said that this particular act feels a little ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ through a blender.
The performances in this act are very good indeed and while the humour was a little lost, the dialogue was capable of some truly poignant moments.
The third act with two mechanics who fall in love with the same woman, searches to capitalise on this gravitas, but struggles. The fact of the matter is that the thread of absurdity is too thick to really know what to make of this production. Nonetheless, it does have a few interesting ideas and is worth a look as there is some distinctive talent on display in places.
3/5
Steven Carey
