“An ambitious production with a clear point of view and plenty of potential.”
Performed in a black box theatre and reviewed via recording, The Evolution of the Perfect Man takes the audience on a whistle-stop tour through history, examining changing ideas of masculinity and the construction of the “perfect man”. The production stars Jade Alvara, who takes on an impressive amount of multi-roling alongside Lara Vivone as Carlos. Both Alvara and Vivone are also the co-directors of Highlight Theatre Company.
The opening music immediately establishes a sense of journey, creating the feeling that the audience is about to embark on something much larger than the small space might suggest. There is something vaguely Lord of the Rings about it, an almost epic introduction to the voyage that is about to unfold. The production makes good use of its two performers, with Alvara in particular taking on a wide range of characters through a succession of costume and character changes. The ambition involved in creating a piece of this scale with only two performers is clear.
The central message around toxic masculinity is, perhaps at times, a little too clear. Some of the ideas are presented in a way that leaves little room for the audience to arrive at their own conclusions. There is also the question of who the play is trying to reach. Carlos begins from a position of fairly entrenched views around masculinity, but would someone with those views actually choose to come and see this play about toxic masculinity? There is a risk that the production ends up preaching to an audience that already agrees with its message, rather than reaching the people who might benefit most from questioning those ideas.
That question lingers as ,for an audience that already agrees with the central message, it is not necessarily clear what the performance offers in terms of how to respond when witnessing men around you begin to slip into the manosphere. The play is effective at showing the problem, yet leaves a bigger question mark around what we can do. Unless a time machine happens to be available, how do we actually reach someone once they are already heading down that road?
Perhaps this is also where watching a recording is most limiting. So much of the atmosphere of theatre comes from being in the room with the performers and the rest of the audience, and it would be interesting to see how the piece feels with a live audience.
Overall, The Evolution of the Perfect Man is an ambitious production with a clear point of view and plenty of potential. The versatility of its small cast, the original music and the willingness of both performers to wholeheartedly throw themselves into the production are all admirable. It is clear that Highlight Theatre Company is brimming with ideas and creativity, and there is a real sense of a young company finding its voice and working out what they want to say and how they want to say it. On the whole, The Evolution of the Perfect Man leaves enough of an impression to make another Highlight Theatre Company production well worth going to see live.
Evolution: The Perfect Man debuted at Drayton Arms Theatre in London in July.