A brilliantly acted one-hander that explores the psychology of a woman trapped in a loveless marriage and a violent affair with her stepson.
choke me., written and performed by Alexandra Montalbano and directed by her and Brock Looser, is a modern reimagining of Lope de Vega’ Punishment Without Revenge. Casandra guides us through how she found herself in a loveless marriage with a controlling and cheating husband and an affair with her violent stepson.
Montalbano expertly flits between multiple characters in an astoundingly dynamic performance. Each one feels fully drawn and alive – there’s a string of awful first dates, Casandra’s well-meaning but useless parents, her friend who knows her better than she knows herself. Then there’s her husband, an oppressive control freak who can’t be bothered to hide his affair; and her stepson, who twitches terrifyingly from apathy to violence learnt from watching too much pornography. Montalbano finds impressive psychological depth in all these figures, but we never lose sight of it being Casandra’s story. It’s an elegantly judged balancing act that many one-handers get wrong.
The story is staged between two cameras that feed to two TVs upstage. Sometimes we see Montalbano from three angles at once, cleverly simulating the feeling of a crowd. At other moments we ‘cut’ back and forth between one angle and another as if watching a film conversation. This technique is most effective when Casandra talks about her, or her husband’s, affairs. It gives Montalbano and Looser the uncanny ability to conjure three presences in the space that can never meet each other’s gazes.
At times, this live-cinema element feels underused. There are stretches when nothing is on either screen and they, along with the cameras, break the immersion of the world being built. By the end, though, there is a theatrically exciting use of the set-up that develops the idea beyond a simple live feed. I wished that moment had arrived earlier and stayed longer once it did.
choke me. expertly builds a sense of dread in its audience. It reveals Casandra’s affair with her stepson early on (enough that I’m not spoiling the play by mentioning it). This allows the piece to explore the devastating psychological effects of this incestuous relationship rather than saving it as a late shock. Casandra’s entrapment is clearly conveyed, as is her use of humour to mask trauma.
It is a play that grapples with serious, complicated issues: the morality of infidelity, coercive partners, incest, and how pornography has normalised men desiring hyper-aggressive sexual acts. It trusts its audience to think seriously about these questions and manages to fit a huge amount into a tight runtime. There are moments of humour and lightness, but it’s also bold enough to believe that theatre can be the catalyst for conversations about what society finds acceptable and unacceptable.
choke me. is a brave play – all one-handers are, but this one especially. It’s brave in its choice of subject and brave in its staging. Montalbano’s acting is so vivid and her presence so captivating that in less skilled hands the play might have managed only to shock. With her, it shimmers with life