‘Fresh grads display their writing and acting talents – and give us a mixed bag’
On at the Rosemary Branch Theatre: four monologues from four recent graduates of East 15’s MA Acting Program. The show’s title is ‘A Fire Inside Her’. Yes. These are stories about female rage.
It starts with Chiara Rosanna Krones bounding on stage. She easily elicits laughter as her character rotates between declaring she’s over her ex then – no! – she’s in love; he’s in a new relationship then – no! – he’s single. It is unoriginal but amusing (the comedic cliche is furthered by her packing and unpacking for her sister’s dreaded wedding). Krones is compelling as a woman who wants to feel worthy of love – but we’d care more if we hadn’t seen it all before.
Next is Sarah Knoepfli’s sailor. Knoepfli starts with angst and ends with angst. It is all rather literary (mouthful sentences, long words). She battles with heavy rope and casts fraught stares and guttural screams at ‘you’ (the audience; the boat). But though it has nice scary acting, it meanders without plot or context. I got that she wanted to feel good enough in the eyes of belligerent patriarchal men. And then I got slightly bored.
Gerda Juknaite’s was probably my favourite; it was different. Here, finally, we see a woman who is actually crazy. Structurally inventive – most of the monologue is phone calls – and totally nonsensical – as the character plans a forced bump-in with Timothee Chalamet. It was witty and weird. And only let down by Juknaite’s performance (or direction) that needed better punctuation to guide us through the phone calls.
Then Maija Yrjölä pops on stage in a twee nighty with a big smile. She is adorable, completely batty, as Marianne from Sense and Sensibility. Marianne wants a body, she wants to leave the book and bungee jump. Austen adaptations can feel overdone but there was something charming and lovely about Yrjölä’s performance and her writing. It wouldn’t all land if unfamiliar with S&S but – luckily for me – I read it last year. So when she said ‘I’m just love sick and into bondage’, I thought ‘classic Marianne’.
Together, the monologues work. There is a good descent into madness and a coherent through line: women who want something (to feel worthy, to feel respected, to meet Timothee, to own a body). The quality of the acting does not always match the quality of the writing and vice versa. But these are graduates; there is more to come. In fact, the monologues may be developed into full-lengths. (I know which two I’d watch.)
A Fire Inside Her’s run at The Rosemary Branch Theatre ends on Monday 6th July.