Dacryphilia
3 October 2013
Broken Mirror
to 6 October
Dacryphilia is arousal by the tears of others.*
Adora works in a mattress store and realises that she was meant to be there when Leo, who can't stop crying, caught a bus from the other side and walked into her shop. It's a distorted but perfect match, until Leo can't cry any more.
Writer Amanda Miha has reworked an earlier short play to develop her first full-length work. With an ominous sense of place, an unknown other side of town where anything and anyone can be bought, her original voice is fuelled by a dark sense of humour and a fascination about what really fuels our emotions and passions.
But there are issues in bringing the script to the stage. The stage tone supports laughing at and distancing from these lovers rather than encouraging the darkness and bringing us into their world. And for a work that's about obsession and tears and somehow finding impossible release and love, the actors don't give us those moments that make us care about the characters or their love.
Meanwhile, a mood of painful love is created by live music from Sophie Rose, which could be extended to give a score to the whole work, but the oddest mood breaker is created by a raw onion. The cut up onion gives a memorable actor-torture scene, but it leaves the theatre smelling like a raw onion and smell has a habit of overpowering all other senses.
If your trying to schedule your last weekend of mad Fringing, this one finishes on Sunday (not Saturday) and it runs about an hour, not the 75 minutes in the Fringe guide.
* And should so be the name of a critic's blog.
