Writers and Directors: Amelie Kirk-Slater and Alisa Husband
The two plays in this double bill, written and directed by two students from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, are very different. One is an economic study of the end of a relationship while the other is an absurdist story about a man befriending a chicken. However, despite these differences, a sense of loss permeates the two 30-minute plays.
In Amelie Kirk-Slater’s Tobias, You & I, a young couple have gone to the aquarium. It’s the very earliest days of their relationship and they are flushed with excitement and anticipation. They are also stoned. They give names to the fish they see swimming around them, calling the shark ‘Tobias’. But amidst their nervous happiness lie darker thoughts. Jo worries about the statue of the Little Mermaid and how it’s often damaged in the name of protests that have nothing to do with the Hans Christian Andersen character. The Little Mermaid is a passive, voiceless victim.
When asked what animal he would like to be, Odie replies ‘A dog’ and then gives a description of a golden retriever that is loved unconditionally by its human family. His reverie of life as a happy dog seems to conceal that his own position at home is not as secure or content. When we meet them again, after a few years, their early confidence has gone and the pair seem broken, almost beyond repair.
Kirk-Slater’s writing is poetic and delicate, and actors Rachel Andrews and Joseph Mason-Coombs deliver the lines with ease, giving glimpses of the melancholy that pervades this underwater world. Only a hard-to-hear voiceover between the scenes mars this wonderful play.
The loss in Alisa Husband’s Chicken is more direct as the unnamed man sees his mother die when she takes a swig of the smoothie she has seen advertised on TV. Just before she takes a gulp she proclaims the advertising slogan ‘A burst of life in every sip’. And then she dies. The man is upset but the chicken that he has brought home to kill becomes a kind of support animal.
He has bought the chicken after listening to another commercial on TV. We hear an American man’s voice broadcasting from the television heralding that the only nutritional chickens are the ones you raise yourself. We then later hear the same voice advertising his funeral services. These kinds of commercials are common in America, but otherwise, we appear to be in the UK.
But the main focus of the play is the burgeoning friendship between the man and his chicken. It must be hard for Harrie Jenson to direct his lines to a cardboard chicken but he manages the task very well, and his character is full of peaceful resignation, not aware that he is becoming his parents. The chicken itself is designed beautifully by Ivy Langley and smoothly and sensitively controlled by Daisy Roe. The puppet is perfectly at home in The Little Angel Theatre which has been showing puppet shows since 1961. Somehow as the play progresses, its absurdity disappears.
This is a strong debut by Amelie Kirk-Slater and Alisa Husband, and their plays are small but perfectly formed. These young creatives, and their actors, should have bright futures.
Runs until 12 August 2023
Camden Fringe runs until 27 August 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Perfectly formed
