Yeah Absolutely

Two women (Anna McCarthy and Jem Nicholas), in leggings and T-shirts, sit at a theatre dressing room mirror.  One obsessively flosses.  The other worries about her eyebrows.  They are preparing for a show – or in this case a ‘performance’ since that is what the program notes say this show is about. 

They then perform a series of ‘warm-up’ exercises for body and voice.  This, like other elements of Yeah Absolutely, goes on twice as long as it needs to.  I found myself inwardly protesting, ‘Yes, yes, I’ve got the point’, but others seemed – or were obliged - to find this segment hilarious.

Ms McCarthy has rather lofty aims for her show.  Her program notes speak of how the ‘self is not an organic expression but rather is constantly performed, re-made and re-cast.’  Yes, but does the show then investigate or mine this truism?  Only to a vague and limited extent and via sketches with no discernible links or transitions – beyond the concept of performance - and which seem to be not much more than over–extended acting exercises. 

These include a sketch about an audition for a road safety ad - in which, by the way, Ms McCarthy shows that she is a terrific actress and clown despite with this very thin material.  The audition piece, heavily and prescriptively directed by Ms Nicholas as the nasty, authoritarian auditioner, is repeated with little variation, but the second time through becomes ‘acceptable’.  The arbitrary nature of a ‘performance’ and its context is clear in this, the most successful (because accessible?) sketch of the evening. 

Ms McCarthy and Ms Nicholas then play several variations on a conversation about coconut oil that seems ill-suited to Ms McCarthy’s overall intentions.  It culminates in them smearing themselves and throwing the stuff at each other.  Finally, Ms Nicholas gives herself a sort of Freda Kahlo mono-brow and both women don white outfits and angel wings.  In this apparently (but only apparently?) irrelevant garb, they play several variations of a conversation about smoking cigarettes.  The show does not build to anywhere or anything – it just stops.

Ms McCarthy has had a lot of help from highly qualified advisors, including two dramaturgs – which makes her show a disappointment on another level.  What was this advice?  As her program notes also say, ‘Deep investment in a shallow idea produces a kind of dejected numbness.’

Michael Brindley