A heartfelt journey about boys and furniture
New York based writer-performer Emily Weitzman begins Furniture Boys with a poem about a couch, followed by a conversation between herself and the couch, conducted in a language she imagines the couch speaking. From there, we begin to witness her relationship with the other pieces of furniture that occupy the stage: a grandfather clock, a picture frame, a drawer, a bookshelf and many others. As Weitzman moves between them, she gradually draws out the similarity between a piece of furniture and a boy, or a man, and the complicated relationship between herself, her boys and her furniture.
The story begins with a poem she wrote years ago as a student, the same couch poem she performs at the beginning of the show. Bit by bit, she goes through the furniture and the boys she met during her artistic life: a white wooden chair whose paint is falling off, broken in half during a party at her place, with only two legs left and only half of its seat remaining; the journey she shared with that chair; a boy who did not understand her relationship with furniture; the boy with whom she had a baby; and an artistic residency where she met a furniture maker.
Weitzman’s approach to this material is more than a simple comic conceit. In another artist’s hands, it could have been as simple as naming each piece of furniture after a boyfriend and making a comedy about it. Instead, she uses the furniture to work through her own artistic identity and her relationship with the broken chair, even though she herself might not be entirely sure what that relationship means. When the show moves into this territory, there are fewer laughs in the room, and some of the energy of the opening begins to disappear. But this uncertainty also gives the piece its honesty. Her attempt to recognise the similarity between a human and a chair, treating both as living subjects rather than making a merely superficial comparison, becomes unexpectedly moving.
Show listing:
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Venue: Jersey at Underbelly, Bristo Square
Dates: 5th–30th August
Time: 14:30
Ticket prices: £14.50 / concessions £13.50
Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / www.edfringe.com
Age suitability: 16+ (Guideline)