The play was was staged in the smallest of available spaces yet the actors did not seem to know this, and played in such big manners with huge voices and gestures that it was often difficult to even believe them. Didn’t they know where they were? It was also tough to buy their humor at the beginning, when they were so pushing every single moment to try to make an impact on their audience of only a dozen members. The camp of the lead character as an eccentric queen, just became unbearable at the beginning, as he sweated profusely and ate everything that he could on stage. He became unlikable and unfunny right from the very start so it was hard to get attached to him emotionally. When his high school classmate, Robert entered the scene, he was so sullen and downcast, that he didn’t follow much of a journey to the very end of the story. He started off, unhappy and exited unhappy. His character just didn’t go any place. The end of the piece did have an emotional impact. But it certainly would’ve had much more of an impact if we would have felt more for the characters initially.  Much of the play seemed to be targeted to one long gut-wrenching monologue of Carrol’s that talks about the source of his original “wound” – but getting there was a little bumpy.

I appreciate seeing a straightforward place as part of a fringe festival. But I wish it had been a cleaner well-made play with characters that had a more clear arc of development so that we could’ve been invited to their journey. It did become a bit tedious at times.