Writer: Capucine Earle
Directors: Katherine Lyle & Andrew Friedman
Capucine Earle’s elaborate slice of poetry theatre, Petit Léopard, presents a non-linear, stream-of-consciousness portrayal of a day in the life of a late 20s French-Canadian expatriate in London. Think a young Mrs Dalloway, if Clarissa were a queer barista-cum-poet with an intrusive superego and an inner child boasting a leopard skin fetish. The protagonist is unnamed, but one presumes this is a semi-autobiographical piece from the immensely likeable recent LAMDA graduate Earle.
Ambitious in both conception and execution, Petit Léopard can be challenging to follow, as narrative continuity seems intentionally less critical than the shifting textures of thought and experience. The piece employs a dream logic, in which events, perceptions, and emotions, delivered through a mash-up of physical theatre, verse, and prose monologue, dissolve and reassemble without coalescing into any obvious storyline. Occasionally, English dissolves into French, adding to the chaos.
Petit Léopard’s flow of attention shifts seemingly randomly between unsuccessful dates at noisy bars (“I’m the hottest thing in this dusty, smoke-filled room”), to a hectic workplace, to lunchbreaks in a graveyard communing with the departed, to reflections on past relationships and loves, to drug-fuelled late-night munching on salami and gherkins. Intrusions to this veritable river of happenings come in the form of voicemails from the protagonist’s mother, sister, ex-boyfriend, and first female lover. A touching phone conversation with a dying grandparent adds pathos.
Then there are David Attenborough-style voiceovers from an unseen superego-style character called Richard A. Horn (Andrew Friedman), who berates our hero with a critique of the thoughts that pass through her head. Finally, add to the mix the character’s leopard-obsessed inner child, who emerges, clawing for her adult doppelganger’s affection, to deliver arbitrary segments of verse. The leopard theme is carried over into the costume design (skintight leggings and boob-tube in faux fur), and feline jolts across the stage to the accompaniment of rapid lighting changes.
One certainly leaves this piece with the feeling of having spent an hour inside someone else’s messy, contradictory, and occasionally plain deranged mind. “What the fuck is happening?” our hero asks herself at one point, and you may well feel the same. Thankfully, directors Katherine Lyle and Andrew Friedman add a disciplined touch, aided by top-notch lighting and sound design, and Claire Adams’ set, which is as manically disordered as the character’s mind. Emerging, just about, from all this anarchy is a pithy picture of early Gen Z restlessness, rootlessness, and hyperactive anxiety.
Runs until 1 October 2025
