Writer: Ayse Balkos
In Canine Teeth, writer and performer Ayse Balkos shares her stories, most true and some slightly dramatised, of growing up as a Turkish woman. The show explores gender expectations in Turkish culture through its examination of the experiences of Balkos, her mother and her grandmother as single women.
Ayse Balkos is clearly an excellent writer. She intersperses different parts of different stories well, and includes a moment of spoken word poetry. She has moments where she is fully engaging, especially in moments where she brings to life vivid characters other than herself. There are moments where one can see this piece has the potential to be something in the realm of Fleabag, using humour, emotion and caricatures to create a show that has something clear to say about the struggles of today’s society.
However Balkos gets let down by the technical aspects, or lack thereof. Throughout most of the performance, your reviewer found themselves having to listen very hard to hear Balkos’ words. At times, Balkos perhaps should project more and speak with more confidence – it often feels like she’s deliberating every word before she speaks. At other times, she gets drowned out by the music – perhaps it would have been clearer if she had been microphoned up. The use of projections often feels like it distracts from the narrative rather than adding to it, especially as they seem very abstract when the action that unfolds on stage feels very naturalistic. A wider variety of lighting states could have elevated the piece significantly and helped to differentiate between the various settings and timelines.
Canine Teeth is a show that easily has the potential to be deeply moving and hard hitting, with impactful messages to say about Turkish culture and society at large. Unfortunately tonight, for this reviewer, it didn’t quite hit the mark that it could have done.
Reviewed on 27th July 2023.
