Writer: Karine Bedrossian
Director: Anastasia Bunce
Karine Bedrossian’s Darkie Armo Girl is a tour de force. Bedrossian as actor grabs our attention from the moment she appears on stage, spiky and energetic, and we are held spellbound throughout this one-woman show. She is a defiant presence who at the same time creates a bond of intimacy and warmth with the audience as she confides episodes of her life. Everything feels spontaneous, immediate and fresh. It is only in retrospect we can see the skillful structure of the piece, the care with which scenes have been selected and presented. Bedrossian as writer mines her own extraordinary rollercoaster of a life without fear, charting her desperate search for acceptance.
An Armenian Cypriot, she is born in London into a family which has only recently fled Cyprus during the civil war. At primary school the young Karine finds friendships difficult. As writer, however, Bedrossian is sharply observant of the sociology of the miniature bullies of the playground. Going to other girls’ houses is a minefield. Knowing only Cypriot cooking, Karine is baffled by an offering of fish fingers for ‘tea’ at the home of a potential buddy and can’t understand why her polite request for stuffed vine leaves leads to her exclusion.
Summers are spent back in Cyprus where she is deposited with relatives and left to play alone. She befriends a severely disabled child in a pitiful state, neglected and tied to a chair. Karine christens her Rag Chewer, but in fact shows instinctive compassion for this other outsider. Meanwhile, unknown to the adults, she is left vulnerable to the predatory advances of her older brother and his friends. She finds release in dance, but later as a teenager, her precocious behaviour in the clubs of Nicosia again exposes her to unwanted male attention.
All this Bedrossian shows us in the first ten minutes of the play. But there is so much more to tell. Karine’s secret hatred of her body leads to an eating disorder and various addictions. But this is no misery memoir. Bedrossian’s script is wildly funny and her glorious impersonations of an extraordinary series of odd balls she meets are a constant delight. There are inevitable sleaze-balls during her career first as a model and then as singer in a band, signed to a major label. It’s no surprise that her first record producer expects sexual favours. But what lifts this above cliché is Bedrossian’s depiction of him as creepily needy, shouting at her from his ‘BMW pram’. At 21 she meets Maxie, a singer-song with who she finds intense sex but not love.
If this sounds an improbable trajectory, it isn’t. This is what really happened to Bedrossian herself. But what allows us to enjoy the ride is her mature playwright’s gaze, her lack of self-pity, her devastating wit. Beyond this is her mesmerising performance. All of these elements, together with Anastasia Bunce’s immaculate direction, makes Darkie Armo Girl a play to remember.
Runs until 9 July 2022
