Love, self-contempt and regret mix together in this explosive cocktail of emotions currently heading to the Edinburgh Fringe throughout the next month. Guillermo Nazara shares his views on the play upon his attendance to the London preview, to let us know if this dark comedy was actually dry as snuff.
A dream is sometimes truer than reality – even if others call it a delusion. We live in a twisted world, after all. The same crazy ideas must have bloomed inside Lynn’s messed-up mind (or so they say). It may not be that bad, anyway. At the end of the day, there’s not much else she can do but put on her own private performance – and just think. Think of her past. Her fate. Her stories. And her many regrets. Who cares for what she does? These are, till proven otherwise, the reflections of a mad woman. Nobody should give attention (let alone, a voice) to what she says. But if there’s something the theatre is packed with is people who are either fools or insane.
Before The Drugs Kick In is a staged reverie of broken honesty. Inspired by the author’s own personal relationship with his mother, this one-woman play depicts the unstable (though incredibly rational) trails of thoughts of a shattered soul. Delivered with a dark humorous tone, the script is outlined as a stand-up comedy show – in which, similarly to the framing devices of previous masterworks like Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, a lost spirit forced into loneliness tries to amend their solitude by speaking to an imaginary audience they’ve summoned up – imaginary, that is, when it comes to the narrative.
Conceived with a genuine approach, the writing, however, does feature some relevant flaws when it comes to its development – as its structure (frequently seeming a bit disorganized) fails to construct an accessible universe the viewers can immerse themselves in. It’s partly due to a lack of proper scene-setting, as though the idea of transforming Lynn’s situation into a fictionalized gig is quite compelling, it’s not been integrated in the right way – thus not allowing the piece to open to and grasp the public as it could have, which also affects its pacing quite considerably.
Starring Maria DeCotis, her constrained rendition is altogether refreshing at some points – but such subtlety often becomes excessive for a show that’s supposed to be edgy and, in some manner, much more defiant and menacing as for its themes. Though no doubt giving a much decent, forthright portrayal of her character, the amusing side of the recount is not actually much explored – as many of the punchlines fall to connect with the audience, perhaps for not being as daring and devastatingly straightforward as we would wish them to be.
One, of course, doesn’t need to get high to enjoy a performance of Before The Drugs Kick In, but its formula is yet to find the missing ingredient to get us intoxicated. Keeping the plot pretty much as it is, a slight extra addition of conflict plus a full makeover in its outline may be the answer to get its machinery in whole motion. Ultimately, a work of art requires purely inspired madness to makes us go crazy about it.
Before The Drugs Kick In will play at Edinburgh Fringe until 26 August. Tickets are available on the following link.