Writer and Director: Sara Jane Voi
Gaslighting and coercive control are recurring themes in many recent plays, but Sara Jane Voi’s autobiographical To(i)let is particularly dark. However, there’s not quite enough material in this three-hander to fill its 45-minute run time.
Perhaps we could see Marika and Thomas go through happier times in the early days of their relationship, as, at the moment, Thomas turns nasty very quickly. His abrupt demand to look at Marika’s phone messages is not precipitated by less sinister domineering behaviour.
Likewise, Marika’s decision to self-harm could be explored more. Is this the first time she has self-harmed, or is it something she has been struggling with before her affair with Thomas? Without some backstory, Marika doesn’t feel especially fully developed as a character. And how old is he meant to be? She works in a restaurant but lives with her parents and talks about love as if she were a 14-year-old girl.
Keenan Denton is definitely disturbing as Thomas, but he seems an unlikely butcher, talking more about wine than meat. However, the dance between him and Marika is a brilliant way to demonstrate their budding romance, and so it’s a shame that this method isn’t repeated to reveal the relationship going wrong. The other dance to Lesley Gore’s You Don’t Own Me doesn’t work at all and goes on for far too long.
But Esther Williams puts in a very good performance as Marika, and there are some lovely still and silent scenes as she takes in what is happening to her. And sitting in the front row of the Etcetera is Miona Drcelic, who plays Marika’s friend Siwar.
The play gets its name from the bathroom in which the action takes place. Marika busies herself preparing for her dates, checking out her outfit in the mirror, but then it becomes unclear whose bathroom it actually belongs to. Is it Marika’s or is it Thomas’s? Or does the set represent two bathrooms? The toilet at the centre of the stage is a little redundant.
There is great promise here with some further insights into Marika and Thomas’s pasts. And never has a bottle rolling across the stage been so horrifying.
Reviewed on 14 August 2025
Camden Fringe runs until 24 August 2025
