Writer and Director: Cristina Varga
Of the many things Cristina Varga’s show says about the things the English like to do – say sorry, hold doors open, talk about the rain – her show Close Enough also inadvertently hits on another, how the English like to see themselves through the eyes of others and revel in the comic effect. Performed at the Etcetera Theatre as part of the Camden Fringe Festival 2024, Varga’s show blends performance, stand-up, film and dance to explore feeling like a linguistic outsider as she pursues her path to stardom.
This 50-minute piece has an intuitive understanding of the pressures and perils of moving from another country in the hope of something better and finding a real separation between the theory of language and its practical, everyday reality. And as the 2020 Cristina arrives in the UK for the first time. highly qualified in the English language, she is immediately foxed by a local accented barista. It is a funny moment, and a slight one, but becomes indicative of a show that really understands that it is the small things that affect Cristina’s experience.
Structurally, Close Enough needs a little straightening out, leaping back and forth in time and switching from topic to topic to explore family stories and worries, the part-time jobs Varga takes to support her studies in the UK and acutely dissecting English culture in routines and songs. There might be value in taking a chronologically mixed-up approach to moving between Romania and the UK, showing perhaps how her grandmother’s militant localism and disapproval compares to the less-than-perfect introduction to Britain, but in its current form, the show loses its thematic connections as it unfolds.
But Varga creates each of the sections with considerable thought, experimenting with staging approaches to tell different parts of her story – and a film segment bookended by her take-off and landing opens out into some adorable home movies from the early 1990s as the toddler Cristina dances and plays. Impressive too are the original songs with a pop styling inspired perhaps by Shakira who becomes an English-teaching reference point, including a jaunty number about the six rules of being English including needing to signal for a bus at a designated stop (a mainly London-based practice in fairness) and accepting that “how are you?” is not a genuine question.
And there are moments of poignancy in Close Enough that could be further explored. Varga references a feeling of loneliness and, crucially of feeling excluded, like a guest in this country who has to be on her best behaviour. There is scope in the show to consider why that is – is it a question of self-confidence about spoken English as discussed earlier in the piece or a deeper-rooted political fear, of feeling unwelcome in the charged environment of the last few years exacerbated by governmental policy and troubling rhetoric around immigration? This section of the show is an opportunity to dig deep.
Varga certainly knows how to tell an entertaining story or two, finding interesting ways to dramatise her experiences and this Camden Fringe Festival show is a great vehicle for her talents.
Runs until 3 August 2024
Camden Fringe runs until 25 August 2025
