[title]
Relationships require patience, and so does this brilliantly awkward, sort-of solo performance from theatre duo (and real-life couple) Made in China. Jessica Latowicki spends the first 15 minutes wordlessly convulsing, flailing, jerking and twerking across the small stage, her sparkly hotpants casting confetti-like reflections on the wall behind her. The last ten minutes she spends spinning on the spot, arms outstretched, like a weather vane in a gale. What happens in the middle, though, is a brutal, alarmingly honest takedown of modern relationships.
Not so much breaking the fourth wall as driving a bulldozer straight through it, Jess – after catching her breath – tells us that boyfriend Tim Cowbury, manning the lights, wrote the show’s script. Nervous laughter ripples through the room as the pair bicker about everything from missed lines to personal hygiene.
At times, it’s left purposefully ambiguous as to whose words Jess is speaking. Is the story of Tim’s death while travelling abroad Tim’s heroic fantasy or Jess’s escapist daydream? Is she going off script-within-script when she demands he leave the room and fetch her a beer?
This short, snappy show is often as confusing as it sounds. But then that’s love for you; between the sexy dancing and the dizziness is when personalities meld, identities overlap and – every so often – darkness bubbles to the surface.