★★★

“It’s a powerful performance on a vital topic. However, Brawn’s one-hour runtime feels too long for the concept.”

At school Ryan was bullied for being skinny. He watched the most popular, attractive girls date the athletes with the most muscles. A few years later, working for his dad’s building company, Ryan is bullied again for being weak. He decides his body is the problem, and starts weight training. Once he has the body he wants, he’ll get everything else he wants too. That’s how it works, right? The more toned the muscles, the more interest from women, and the more respect from men.

Brawn, written and performed by Christopher Wollaton, is a one-hour monologue that exposes the male casualties of society’s obsession with body image. Often underreported and overlooked, the issue of men who suffer from anxiety and insecurity about their bodies is very real and can have devastating consequences. Brawn takes a hard look at Ryan’s struggle with body dysmorphic disorder and exercise addiction.

The play finds Ryan at a crisis point. He’s stopped going out with friends (they distract from his training routine), he’s stopped drinking (too many calories), he’s even stopped going to the gym, feeling like too many people are watching, judging, competing. Instead he spends almost all of his time in a makeshift gym in his parents’ garage, where the performance takes place. The set is one chair and two very heavy dumbbells, which Wollaton repeatedly lifts throughout the show.

Wollaton is a hypertense, caged animal. His stamina is impressive as he intersperses his lines with sets of pushups and dumbbell reps. It’s a powerful performance on a vital topic. However, Brawn’s one-hour runtime feels too long for the concept. Wollaton frequently rephrases the same ideas, and there’s very little sense of forward motion. Director Matt Staite may have intended the claustrophobic atmosphere – trapping the audience in one small, sparse space like Ryan’s disorder has trapped him in his mind – but the lack of progression, and that the lines are a lot of the same, makes it difficult to stay invested for the full hour.

Brawn is a thinly-stretched hour that could be a much stronger, higher-impact thirty or even fifteen minutes. Nevertheless, Wollaton gives voice to a scarcely heard perspective – one that absolutely deserves an audience. As a society, we need more stories that bring awareness to men’s mental health issues, also specifically to men’s struggles with body image, and though it could use some editing down, Brawn is one that’s stepping up to fill the void.

Reviewed by Addison Waite

Photography by Dann Cooper

Laundry

The Space

Reviewed – 9th January 2019

★★★

“well-paced, with a clear narrative arc and some terrific, playful moments of theatricality”

The premise of STARCHEDtheatre’s debut production is a simple one: five neighbouring women in 1950s East London live out their lives and loves over their laundry. The company has clearly done its research – there is a wealth of lovely period detail, including the wonderful moment when Connie (superbly played by Jade Dowsett-Roberts) paints on her nylons with gravy – and it is impressively-shaped for a devised piece; well-paced, with a clear narrative arc and some terrific, playful moments of theatricality. The company is clearly ambitious, which is to be applauded, and for the most part its boldness pays off. Sarah Carton clearly has a future in sound design, though the persistent presence of music did occasionally distract from the dramatic action on stage, and the first introduction of a contemporary dance beat into the score does take away from the power of the later intense, wordless washing sequence, in which the women pound their individual frustrations out, drenched in red light.

This sequence, as well as the other powerful ensemble moment, which brings the play to its close, are, unfortunately, only fully visible to the people in the front row, which is a serious flaw in the otherwise excellent production design. It really is a shame to have so much excellent work wasted, and the audience frustration in the second two rows was palpable. Doubly disappointing, this, when there is so much creativity to admire elsewhere in the production – the pleasing use of the sheets in George and Elsie’s wedding scene, and again in Elsie’s moving solo moment in the latter stages of the play, to name but two.

The development of George and Elsie’s relationship is tender and beautiful throughout, from its tentative early beginnings through to its poignant close, and credit must go here both to Harry Elliott and Olivia Baker, who bring a touching level of emotional truth to these two rather understated characters. There is some terrific acting talent on display throughout. Particularly notable are Duncan Mitchell’s Arthur – a picture of roguish charm, deceit and emotional hopelessness – and William Reardon’s explosive turn as John, full of repressed steel and thunder. Anna Hallas Smith also lends a good deal of psychological heft to Betsy, the piece’s agent provocateur and tragic heroine.

The action was managed deftly for the full seventy minutes, and the stage was always pleasingly alive – a particularly impressive feat given that, as per the lack of directing credit on the cast and crew sheet, the company appears to have directed itself collectively. Overall, Laundry is an impassioned and ambitious debut from this young company, bursting with talent and drive. It would be exciting to see where all this creative energy could go in the service of a more contemporary story – something which truly belongs to these performers – and this reviewer, for one, would be first in line for a ticket.

The Space

Reviewed – 16th January 2019

★★★

“It’s a powerful performance on a vital topic. However, Brawn’s one-hour runtime feels too long for the concept.”

Reviewed by Addison Waite

Photography by Dann Cooper

Brawn

The Space until 19th January

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

The Space

Reviewed – 9th January 2019

★★★

“well-paced, with a clear narrative arc and some terrific, playful moments of theatricality”

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Photography by Henry Thompson

Laundry

The Space until 12th January

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: