Porcelain Dolls

Postcard review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – Porcelain Dolls

Playwrights/Composers – Megan Baldrey, Claire Bolton, Erin Weir, and Gillian Klassen. With additional material by Malina Jensen, China Marsh, and Anastasia St. Amand.

Production Company/Theatre space – Community, Full Circle Theatre, West Village Theatre.

Length – 2 ACT (2 hours, 50 mins, one intermission.)

Genre/s – Comi-drama

Premise – Eight drunk women deal with friends, feuds, future in-laws, insecurity, and grief in a bathroom at a bachelorette party.

Why this play? Why now? – A new female collective experiment, creating roles for women.

Curiosities – What can you show us that we don’t know or haven’t seen before about pooping, peeing, puking, pill popping, tampon borrowing, crying, makeup application, wardrobe malfunctions, and spillage? Is this more eye opening for men?  Is this how we want to portray women?

Notable Moment – Audience chanting/participation.

Notable writing – Some of the writers of this production were co-creators of last year’s successful R & J spoof. Then, they followed the spine of a play written by a genius. Now, there was no roadmap to follow. This play written (or devised) by seven women is overwritten and unfocused. The plot feels fractured but egalitarian with every character being equal having their own journey. Writing by committee seldom makes a masterpiece. The caveat to this is, there are some comic moments and a sweet romance.

Notable performances – Drunk acting is difficult because it slows down the action. Uta Hagen says, “… (drunkenness) seems to remain a trap even for some of our finest actors leading to a series of clichés”.  The audience is cast as being the sober person amongst inebriated people and this wears thin. The actors struggled to be consistent falling down at one moment, conveniently sober for other parts, then returning to slurring giggles. The vocal pitches and up speaking was sometimes hard to listen to. I felt a little like Jane Goodall observing a tribe of unfamiliar primates.

Notable design/Production – For a play that dealt a lot with liquids it was a remarkably dry set. Carrying the theme into the lobby was fun with the rose gold foil and penis decorations.

Notable direction – Danielle Baker had the cast in a very large bathroom. Containing the space may have made it more realistic and heightened some of the inherent awkwardness by proximity. This also would have cut down the wobbly theatrical crosses and delays on entrances and exits. At one point a character with OCD arranges lipsticks, moving to Gangnam Style. Moments like this had the potential to bring down the house but was just a tease of things unexplored.

One reason to see this show – Full Circle theatre is “committed to the celebration of women in theatre”, so if you are a younger woman from this tribe, join the celebration.