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Camden Fringe 2023
It’s not a bad play, but it’s also not a memorable play, it’s just a play that lasts an hour and then ends. Summary
Rating
Good
I am in awe of those reviewers who see shows night after night, managing to still write about them in a way that doesn’t feel recycled from the last review they did. It really is a skill. Sometimes it’s not made easy by shows such as Pink Elephants. Because honestly, it started, it had amusing moments, it had poignant moments, it ended, we left. And by the time I had reached the foot of the stairs at Lion and Unicorn Theatre, I had almost forgotten it. Now how on earth do you turn that into around 500 words?
It’s not that Pink Elephants is a bad show. It’s absolutely not. It’s just one of those shows I failed to connect with, and come the end had no real idea what, if anything, the writer Lauren Stones was attempting to say. There are some delightful bits, none more so than their reenactment of the monkey scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey, a result of the pair dropping acid for the first time. Stones’ performance as Emerson is another highlight, her downtrodden drug addict a collection of self-pity and misplaced hope.
Its real problem is that it doesn’t seem to go anywhere, or at least nowhere obvious. Whilst a play most certainly doesn’t need to have a start, middle and end, it does need to have a point, or elicit a response from the audience. Unfortunately my response was, “and?”
The story is basic, but again that’s fine as long as it’s handled right. Emerson and Jerry (Alex HJ Smith) are housemates, whose life revolves around how many drugs they can consume every evening after Jerry returns from another mundane day in his job at a call centre. It is scene after scene of discussing what drugs they have consumed, experiencing bad trips and having long late-night debates. There’s plenty to make it an enjoyable watch and for some it will bring back memories of similarly misspent nights.
But it always comes back to the question of what and why? There’s a running thread of Luke, a former third housemate who has recently died of an overdose, and clearly this is meant to mean something, but the meaning clearly passed me by. Then there’s Emerson’s obsession with taking up badminton, obviously a metaphor for wanting to do something more with her life. But none of it seems to progress beyond mere mentions. Nothing that is said or done really seems vital in forming some sort of plot or message for us to decipher.
Pink Elephants is a rather strange play. It wasn’t a wasted hour but it did fail to leave any sort of impression on me. It’s amazing I’ve managed 500 words reviewing it to be honest because I can hardly remember quite what occurred during that hour of my life. Maybe it was all a hazy drug induced dream?
Written by: Lauren Stones
Directed by: Kevin Martin Murphy
Pink Elephants has completed its current run at Camden Fringe.
