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Just The Tonic @ The Grassmarket Centre – The Little Kirk
This play has plenty to say in a post Covid, socially underfunded world but doesn’t quite hit the spot, with clumsy delivery and hit and miss humour. Summary
Rating
Ok
Women Reincarnated is a one woman show written and presented by Theresa Cole, who uses a diverse set of characters to retell a number of personal stories from recent years. Employing a series of props, costumes and accents, she moves between female personas, transforming on stage, and occasionally breaking the fourth wall to include members of the audience, to comedic effect. Working through spiritual guru, to inner-city teacher, health worker, call centre handler, and motivational wellbeing speaker, Cole often uses their monologues to highlight issues that are particularly pertinent to women, whether they are health or career related. Humour is regularly used but sometimes clunkily, with the result it can feel formulaic.
Unfortunately Cole is often unsure in her delivery, stumbling over her words on occasion. The choice of characters appears random and the jokes don’t always land well. There are clear references to post-Covid social issues – underfunding of health care, or urban deprivation in schools – but often these are almost throwaway references. Most of the characters appear only once but the health care call centre worker reappears several times; it unclear why this figure does whilst others do not.
At the end of the show Cole steps through the fourth wall to address the audience and explain the relevance of the stories to both her and her husband. This is a valuable section which helps us to make sense of her choices. It was a bit of a light bulb moment for me and I wonder whether this section could have introduced the performance instead?
Cole has clearly made choices about topical subjects that mean something to her as a playwright, which are similarly significant to a large section of today’s society. She could perhaps make this a harder-hitting, politically relevant show by focusing in on her characters, and rethinking the comedic delivery. That’s not to say that humour should be avoided; there is definitely a place for it, but on this occasion it could be a distraction.
In short, if this piece goes on to have another incarnation, I hope that she will have confidence in the things that matter to her as writer, and focus on those, stripping out the unnecessary bits. Her passion will shine through to the audience and take the performance up a level.
Written by: Theresa Cole
Produced by: Yellow Poppy Film and Theatre
Women Reincarnated has completed its current run as part of EdFringe 2023.
