Eight leaves you yearning for its missing monologues.
Eight
Ella Hickson’s Eight explores the repercussions of choices. Eight monologues have been prepared, but only six will be performed. The audience vote for which ones they want to see, but as Hickson reminds us, every choice leaves something behind. Through the monologues we have selected, she takes us into the lives of six neglected, disconnected twentysomethings wrestling with an unfeeling universe.
Each character is missing something. Miles (a clipped and crisp Jonathan Kenyon) is a hotshot American stockbroker, a survivor of the 2005 London bombings who has forsaken everything of his former life but memory. Paul Waggott plays art dealer André, whose boyfriend has just hanged himself with a Hermès scarf, with a hip-popping camp blasé that denies the tragedy of his circumstance.
Jessica Robinson finds the comedy and pathos as stiff-upper-lipped Millie, a “marital supplement” to the upper crust of England, who services her gentlemen the old-fashioned way. And as Bobby, a struggling mother of two, she gives the evening’s most moving performance.
Astrid (Chelsea Bognuda) is a quirky, charming young woman who cheats on her lover to reassert herself in their relationship. Bognuda also brings an uncanny quality to Mona, an unnerving insight into the troubled mind of a little-girl-lost in a world without boundaries. The lyricism of this monologue is out of keeping with the others, and although the performance is commanding, it is a peculiar end to the evening.
One wonders if the unseen monologues would have bridged this leap in tone. Its publicity has been focused on the voting device, but Eight contains excellent writing and performances, and ought to be a whole lot more than the gimmick. I would have liked to see them all.
EIGHT, by Ella Hickson, directed by Simon Vincent, Circa Two, Wellington, until September 3.