DARK NATURE at the Canal Café Theatre

★★★

“But Betts, in a flowing, gothic black dress, is a striking presence”

When looking back over our lives, many of us have a ‘before and after’ event lodged in our mind. Some sort of milestone which we use to place memories. Sometimes trivial, often traumatic. What happened ‘before’ remains immutable. The aftershock usually has various, ghostlike pathways as the ‘what if…?’ question echoes internally and insistently. Until we finally realise that the present – and possibly the future – is as unchangeable as the past. There are no ‘sliding doors’ we can control at our whim. Not even in fairy tales.

Michaela Betts, in her atmospheric and candidly personal musical narrative “Dark Nature, seems to have reached that point. It is not always clear how much is autobiographical truth or embellishment, but Betts doesn’t shy away from delivering some dark reminiscences. It is not always comfortable. A meandering stream of consciousness as the show weaves in and out of the realms of fantasy. So much so that it often feels like two unrelated pieces that have converged into an oddly mismatched whole.

But Betts, in a flowing, gothic black dress, is a striking presence. She delivers her story at the piano while, under her schoolmistress like gaze, Antonia Richards relives her younger self. Something happened when she was seven years old. We don’t learn the true, dark nature of this until the end; a finale we are led towards, step by step through songs of innocence and experience. Richards depicts credibly a personality trying to maintain the veneer that everything is still okay (“I was every parent’s dream”) while clearly a childhood has been stolen, and the steps into adulthood are carved in the precipice of self-destruction. As she teeters, losing balance, you almost believe the lie when she repeatedly calls out that “you can’t touch me – I feel nothing”.

Helen Goldwyn’s staging reflects this split personality. One minute ethereal, the next profanely harsh. Some beautiful projected animation draws us in while less successful attempts at audience participation push us away again. Only when Betts sings are we truly rooted. She becomes majestic at the piano, her fragile melodies accompanying her delicately beautiful voice. Unique and melancholic, her songs are dark folk tales in themselves, cinematic in scope but with the intimacy of a campfire. We are seduced but there is always a danger of being burned. No more so than during the closing number “The Rose” with its award-winning animated video projected onto the back wall. The lyrics are the blueprint for this show, the aching melody is the texture that emblazons the outline.

It is a gorgeous moment, but the progression there is uneven. Yet we learn a lot on the way, and are exposed to many important questions of abuse, grooming, body-shaming, gaslighting, coercion, addiction, self-harm, self-esteem. The narrative doesn’t so much touch on these as delivers a punch. But sometimes the swing misses, and the presentation is jarring. To her credit, Betts doesn’t try to supply the answers. “There is no judgement here”. Yet the lack of resolve is a little confusing, and the curtain call suffused with doubt, which we can see written on the performers faces. Is Little Red Riding Hood out of the woods or is the wolf still on her tail?

But “Dark Nature” is a theatrical journey worth taking, if not for Betts’ haunting presence as a singer songwriter. It is the music that truly touches, and lingers into the night. And, of course, the voice.

DARK NATURE at the Canal Café Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd August 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Ben Wulf

More Camden Fringe 2023 Reviews:

Invasion! An Alien Musical | ★★ | Camden People’s Theatre | July 2023

This Girl: The Cynthia Lennon Story | ★★ | Upstairs at the Gatehouse | July 2023

Glad To Be Dead? | ★★ | Hen & Chickens Theatre | July 2023

Maybe I Do? | ★★★★ | Hen & Chickens Theatre | July 2023

Flamenco: Origenes | ★★★★ | Etcetera Theatre | August 2023

All That Glitters | ★★½ | Rosemary Branch Theatre | August 2023

Dead Souls | ★★½ | Etcetera Theatre | August 2023

Kate-Lois Elliott: Gentrif*cked | ★★★ | Museum of Comedy | August 2023

Improv The Dead | ★★★★ | Hen & Chickens Theatre | August 2023

Avocado Presents | ★★★ | Hen & Chickens Theatre | August 2023

Sarah Roberts : Do You Know Who I Am? | ★★★★ | The Bill Murray | August 2023

End Of The World Fm | ★★★ | Cockpit Theatre | August 2023

Ashley Barnhill: Texas Titanium | ★★★★ | Museum of Comedy | August 2023

The Vagina Monologues | ★★★ | Canal Café Theatre | August 2023

Not Like Other Girls | ★★★★ | The Queer Comedy Club | August 2023

Improv Death Match | ★★★★ | Aces and Eights | August 2023

Theatresports | ★★★★ | Museum of Comedy | August 2023

My Body Is Not Your Country | ★★★ | Cockpit Theatre | August 2023

Dark Nature

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★★★

“Aurore Padenou’s performance stands out in particular, delivering many of her lines as though she had just thought of them”

The Vagina Monologues is so entirely engrained in the modern canon, even if you have no idea what it is, you’ve likely heard of it. Debuting in ‘96, it was then largely considered a radical, exciting idea, saying the unsayable with enthusiasm and positivity.

Based on interviews with hundreds of women, each monologue places the vagina at its centre: If it could speak what would it say, if it got dressed, what would it wear? Some are more serious: a refugee recalls being violently gang-raped, and thereafter considering her vagina a pillaged village, unvisited. But most are about discovery: of pleasure, power, identity.

The idea that we don’t talk about vaginas enough, are afraid to say the word itself, is still valid nearly three decades later. But the manner of execution feels dated at times. The many metaphors- “my vagina is a delicate flower; my vagina is a green field” and the airy-fairy ideas of what it would wear, or what it smells of- “snowflakes”- feel counter-productive.

Even in its prime, the play received some feminist criticism, pointing out that third-wave feminism had worked hard to argue that women were more than their bodies, and The Vagina Monologues argues almost the opposite. This feels truer than ever, and watching this production I’m struck by the thought that this is more historical than urgent; a glimpse into ideas past.

The performances themselves vary in quality, but all are carried out with enthusiasm and a sense that they are doing something important, telling stories that have, until now, been neglected, regardless of whether this is always true.

Aurore Padenou’s performance stands out in particular, delivering many of her lines as though she had just thought of them. Despite the controversy of The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could- a grown woman fondly reminisces about being seduced at 13 by an older woman- Pandenou presents this story tenderly and intimately. And while the gnawing feeling that this 13-year-old was essentially raped doesn’t quite go away, Padenou gives the narrative honest complexity.

Each monologue is accompanied by a theme of props- one woman clears up a birthday party, another polishes old silverware. These don’t appear to be relevant to the stories themselves, but given we’re watching multiple one-woman monologues, one right after the other, it keeps the eye focused and the ears from wandering.

Personally, I’m not especially charmed by the idea of my vagina wearing a tuxedo or a tutu, and I don’t think it adds anything to the conversation. But it’s undeniable that V’s (formerly Eve Ensler) work has been massively influential, informing some of the most exciting new theatre today, and that’s reason enough to go see this seminal work.

DARK NATURE at the Canal Café Theatre

★★★

“But Betts, in a flowing, gothic black dress, is a striking presence”

DARK NATURE at the Canal Café Theatre

Reviewed on 23rd August 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Ben Wulf

More Camden Fringe 2023 Reviews:

Dark Nature

Dark Nature

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES at the Canal Café Theatre

★★★

“Aurore Padenou’s performance stands out in particular, delivering many of her lines as though she had just thought of them”

THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES at the Canal Café Theatre

Reviewed on 15th August 2023

by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Richard Lipman

Recently reviewed by Miriam:

The Vagina Monologues

The Vagina Monologues