Great chemistry fuels this sizzling portrait of friendship, love, and wedding-day doubt
Right as she’s about to walk down the aisle, Alex (Rachel McKay) dashes off to her bridal suite and refuses to come out. Having dragged best friend and maid of honour Grace (Lauren Lewis) along in her wake, Every Great Man centres around the duo’s attempts to talk things out as her husband waits at the altar – is this just a case of last-minute nerves, or something more? Along the way they delve into their own friendship, in a narrative as funny as it is dramatic. The result is a very real portrait of contemporary womanhood.
It all starts with an offhand comment from the best man the night before – the aphorism that gives the show its title: “behind every great man lies a great woman”. Sparking Alex’s long-buried insecurities about whether she’s living her life to the fullest, this lights a fuse that detonates just as the organist is tuning up. This prompts a flash back to the day Alex and Grace became friends, bonding over the drawings they’d done and the ‘naughty words’ they overheard their fathers say.
This sets up Every Great Man’s structure, oscillating between the dramatic present-day church conversations and more comic memories of friendship. These changes in time are clearly delineated by the clever repositioning of furniture onstage, and there are an impressive number of props and sound cues employed for a piece of fringe theatre. McKay and Lewis embody their younger selves adroitly, painting a believable portrait of growing up in the early 2000s.
The more dramatic flashbacks stumble, however, by trying to cram too much into one scene. It’s almost as if the script was trying to work through a checklist of the prime causes of teenage angst: a single scene covers a possible eating disorder; concerns over flirting with an older guy; the perilous thrill of sexting; and doubts about sexuality. These scenes are always engaging, but each idea could make up an act of the play in itself and so is only superficially explored. Consequently, Every Great Man’s first half feels a little muddled, and lacks a satisfying dramatic payoff.
By contrast, when the second half gets its teeth into the other relationship here – between the bride and groom – it makes for some powerful drama. The entrance of husband Dylan (Samuel Warren) imbues each conversation with tension as the audience grapples with whose side they’re on. Dylan’s teenage self in flashback is a charming mix of insecurity and youthful arrogance, and his present-day form seethes with a believable frustration. But he also has a worrying tendency to cut Alex off mid-thought, and is dismissive of her friendship with Grace.
The first half of Every Great Man is a love letter to female friendship which could explore its emotions in more depth, whilst its second half is a combustible kitchen-sink drama with a satisfying payoff. The mix of comedy and emotion is effective, reinforcing the audience’s investment in the narrative playing out onstage, and the characters themselves. Alex and Dylan’s big day is well worth peeking into, making for a funny and affecting production.