Comedy and drama fail to mesh in a show that asks an interesting question, but never answers it
Contained within a single tram journey, Lost Property is acomic monologue about Alice (Amelia Dunn), who has ‘lost’ her vagina. By this, Alice means she no longer experiences sexual arousal, and the story’s central thrust focuses on her efforts to ‘find’ it again. She attends evening classes for rediscovering womanhood, switches to non-biological washing powder, and sees a sex therapist who makes her wear a vagina-shaped mask. The zany humour of these interactions sits uneasily alongside the pre-show trigger warnings – mainly concerning sexual assault – a tonal clash that plays out awkwardly on stage. Consequently, the humour never quite lands, and the interesting issues raised by the story’s big revelation feel superficial.
Performer Amelia Dunn is one half of Lost Property’s writing team, alongside Tuia Suter, and does a good job embodying a range of remembered people. Dunn’s shifting posture and mannerisms sketch a gallery of characters, from the workplace receptionist who always bakes matcha cookies to an old friend recounting their first sexual experience in the school toilets. Particularly funny is Dunn’s personification of her own vagina, a mass of fluttering eyelashes and floaty head-movement that immensely displeases her sex therapist.
At times, however, the jokes seem over-embellished – Alice’s voice is a little too shrill, her facial expression overly clowned – making them feel sterile. The audience titters politely rather than belly-laughing. This manic comedy occludes the foreshadowing of a dramatic revelation, which is a shame as there is real menace in the throwaway lines and sound clips which hint at the cause of Alice’s lost libido. These snatches of darkness are skimmed over, crammed into the gaps between fart jokes and silly faces.
Lighting and sound cues effectively transport the narrative between remembered places, ensuring the intimacy of monologuing never becomes stifling. Several props, including the vagina cosplay, are used to good comic effect. It is a shame, therefore, that when the dramatic reveal arrives, it’s handled superficially. The question of how much women owe one another is an interesting one, and the emotional turmoil Alice feels is affecting, but the narrative never takes this anywhere. A trite conclusion wraps the story up with little impact, leaving the audience disappointed at an opportunity squandered.
Lost Property is fundamentally a show where drama and comedy are two whirring cogs that never quite mesh. Its off-the-wall, absurdist humour feels a little too practiced to be genuinely funny, and drains impact from the darker, more interesting drama. The result is a show which takes a long time to get to the point, and then fumbles it.
Lost Property plays at the Etcetera Theatre at 7pm until 2nd August. It then transfers to the Edinburgh Fringe, at Surgeons’ Hall from 11th – 23rd August. Tickets can be purchased here.