Review: Loud Mouths, Libra Theatre Café

There’s a friendly intensity at the Libra Theatre Café ahead of the evening’s performance of Loud Mouths. The rumble of the Northern Line trains below reverberates around the space, offering the perfect soundscape for a story about a heated argument. Charley Ray Chatterley’s direction more than plays into this intensity, the production beginning with the blare of The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’. 

On walks Alex (Mia Capucci), a student whose opening monologue feels almost Fleabag-esque. We get the impression that she’s trying so hard to be the comic entertainer that she will inevitably slip up and say something offensive. This perhaps lulls the audience into a false sense of security, as her upcoming hurtful comments turn out to feel much more deliberate. Alex tells us that her flatmates Spencer (Felix Cotter) and Marsie (Immie Hutchins) are somewhere between being great fun and “aggressively dull”. The clever thing about this production is that, when the flatmates are introduced, Alex seems to be absolutely right. They either match her relentless energy entirely or become quite passive during some of her (I don’t think it would be unfair to say) ramblings. We’re completely on her side, but it soon becomes apparent that we really shouldn’t be.  

There are frequent transitions between the scene of an argument with Spencer and Alex and Marsie’s debrief two years later. These are simple yet clear (though maybe would benefit further from a lighting change), with Spencer remaining onstage but turned away from the action. This allows the audience to always be subconsciously aware of Spencer’s presence but never distracted from Alex and Marsie’s initially jokey, subsequently brutally honest, interaction.   

The argument in question stems from Alex suddenly not being the centre of attention. She finds her companions bonding over their respective queer identities, something that she will never be able to relate to. This causes her to lash out against them with hate speech.  The main issue here is the lack of build-up. Alex becomes aggressively homophobic without any previous warnings or clues. Granted, she speaks in a crude manner from the start, but we don’t see an underlying sinister side to her, nor odd phrases and microaggressions, before we get the whole tirade. Moreover, the full severity of this toxic friendship is brought out relatively early on. The play seems to decide on an instantaneous change of tone, making the comedic opening feel somewhat tokenistic.  

After Alex’s homophobic outpouring, Spencer throws some misogynistic insults at her as she tries to explain why her experience as a woman means that she struggles as much as he does. The tragedy is that these two characters could be using their ‘loud mouths’ to speak up against the injustices they face, but are instead at odds with one another. 

Even with Spencer’s terrible reaction, Alex is an incredibly difficult character to sympathise with. We hear that she has inherited her problematic attitudes from her father, but it would be good if more context were offered as to why she feels so damaged, and why that prompts her to speak in the way she does.  This being said, the trio’s performances are all strong. Capacci brings a doomed bravado, Cotter a fierce vulnerability, and Hutchins a wittiness that develops into an astute emotional awareness. 

Loud Mouths demonstrates that not all friendships have a happy ending, but more positively suggests that people who were raised on a culture of prejudice can come to realise the pain their viewpoints generate. With the UK and Europe now teetering on a knife edge between tolerance and hate, let us pray that is true.     

Written by: Felix Cotter, Mia Capacci and Immie Hutchins
Directed by: Charley Ray Chatterley

Loud Mouths has completed its run at The Libra Theatre Cafe