By Charles Hubbard, Theatre and Performance Studies Undergrad
Breeches, Tomboy Pulp Theatre’s much-anticipated follow up to their Edinburgh Fringe hit Bachelor Girls is finally here and it’s one of the best student shows I’ve seen this year, potentially even the best. A viciously entertaining chamber piece set in the cramped backroom of a tavern-theatre during 17th century King James England, it tells the story of four characters all dealing with knotty issues of deception, repression and a burning fear of being found out.
Fran (Jamie Druce) is a terminally anxious and stress-ridden actor in active derision of the words he is forced to say by an allegedly arrogant and domineering playwright whom the audience is never allowed to see. His worries only compound when the man acting alongside him (and his understudy) both suddenly die under suspicious circumstances, pressuring Fran to step into a role he believes is cursed. Druce is cast so perfectly here that I wouldn't be surprised if the creative team reached out to him directly without asking anyone else to audition. Though given probably the least dramatically substantial and most caricature-ish role in the show, Druce resists the temptation to purely play the character for laughs and instead mines Fran for sympathy and humanity even in his most ridiculous and pitiful moments. That said, he does certainly still get his fair share of laughs - his line about everyone telling him to watch Hamlet in particular brought the house down.
Ros (Grace McGee) is an aspiring playwright, though one whose aspirations often have to take a backseat to everything that is thrown her way over the course of the play, be it a sudden lavender marriage proposal, accusations that she is a witch or people telling her that her work will never be allowed on a stage. She’s the closest that the play has to a ‘straight man’ (which anyone who has seen the show will know is an odd prefix considering the numerous asides about her sexuality) or an audience insert and McGee is terrific at coaxing the audience into letting their guard down before revealing one of the play’s many shocking twists with devastating panache. Even when not technically onstage (she enters the audience through an aisle at one point), she is always captivating to watch.
Tom (Mima Hurst) - or Edmund, as her fake identification papers would have you believe - is a swaggering, devil-way-care cross-dresser who dons the titular breeches in order to perform shady deals at the docks yet is never quite able to convince the other characters that she’s as confident as she wants to be. Hurst’s job is quite possibly the hardest of the four - playing a character with so many duelling and contradictory facets is no walk in the park - but rises to the task with admirable verve and a sense of comedic timing to match the very best. Her opening monologue delivered straight to the audience is one of the play’s most electric and enthralling sequences.
Morgan (Lily Walker), both the landlady of the tavern and Ros’ aunt, is a constant enigma who seems entirely uninterested in the rantings and troubles of those around her. However, still waters run deep and, as the play unfurls, she is revealed to be not quite as desensitised and bulletproof as she gives off. Walker, who is able to convey more emotion and character with a simple sigh or turn of the head than many other actors can with a page-long monologue or primal cry, has no trouble drawing the audience into Morgan’s buried struggles despite her skilled restraint. Her performance in particular is key in the darker and more demented turn that the play takes in its second half.
What little set there is is immediately communicative of the play’s setting and themes without ever shoving it in the audience’s face. The yellowed and curling ‘wanted’ and ‘warning’ posted pinned to the back curtain give the play a quiet but sharp aura of paranoia and suspicion. They never let the audience forget that, behind all of the frilly ruffs and witty lines lies a sinister and simmering underbelly of fear and bigotry that, over the course of the play, curdles to a boiling point.
Anyway, I hope I’ve sold you on it - I know I was sold the minute I saw the cast list! Breeches is on at the Alma Tavern Theatre 18th and 19th March.
Photographs by Kate Marron, Instagram: @kate_marron_media
