**** (4 stars)
“Acutely Observed”
Once again I’m in a show which wasn’t what I expected, but which was excellent.
Kate Skinner, an American actor, has us laughing from her first entrance – congratulating us for coming to her show, even though we know it’s about a widow. She’s 70, and one of the things about getting older is that the people around you, whom you love, start dying…. One of these is her husband Ron Mclarty, whose death five years ago she sees as some sort of cosmic prank. This show is a posthumous love letter to him – whenever she talks about him, her face lights up into a luminous smile.
It’s also a humorous account of her forays into the world of online dating, begun after she realised she was beginning to see a visiting plumber as more than a workman… At first, she regarded this as therapy, mere window shopping – but then began to wonder if she could, would, should take it further. Her best friend, her ‘dating doula’, outlined the steps she should follow – contact, online conversation, coffee or a drink in a neutral space.
Being Kate, she didn’t necessarily do things in the correct order. And here followed some potentially hilarious but also depressingly familiar stories about encounters with people who weren’t particularly bothered about providing accurate descriptions of themselves, especially where age and height were concerned. “The attack of the incoming kiss” and the “rotating tongue kiss” were regular features of these encounters, all described with a wealth of acutely-observed and memorable detail and delightfully edgy New York humour.
Along the way, Kate learned much about herself, and it was interesting to see her development from critical observer [as if taking part in a scientific experiment], to someone who began to see her dates’ point of view – maybe they’d not kissed anyone in a very long time? Maybe the mind-numbingly boring one-sided conversations were because Kate was the first person who’d ever listened?
Kate’s use of language is delightful and evocative: it’s easy to laugh with her, remembering all too clearly hesitantly dipping one’s own toe in the dating pool. Running through the show are loving remembrances of Ron, increasingly poignant as she loses him to dementia. With all these memories, is it surprising that she’s happy to walk round the edge of the dating pool, but can’t bring herself to plunge in.
She’s very engaging, a pleasure to watch, her expressive face and body moving easily from joy to sorrow and all points in between. I resonate strongly with her experiences of trying to engage in conversation with gatherings where most people are in couples and simply can’t cope with a woman on her own – “who knew there were so many ways to disappear?”. Where I part company with her is that a very long time ago now I was on my own after a lifetime of being unhappy while coupled up. I decided after some fruitless forays into the world of ‘meeting people’ that I wasn’t going to waste any more time on this, but would instead concentrate on enjoying my own life – if someone came along, fine: if they didn’t, then at least I’d had a life I enjoyed!
Gentle reader, no-one ever came along. But I’ve had an absolutely brilliant life “on my own” – doing things I enjoy, having good friends, but also being really comfortable with my own company. A love like Kate and Ron’s never came my way, and part of me envies her. Another part is glad that she’s arrived at a point in her life where she can celebrate what a gift she had, and celebrate her single life rather than seeing it as a trap from which she’s desperate to escape.
An excellent, thought-provoking, and very funny show which her audience really loved.
Help I’m trapped in a one-woman show, 10 Dome at Pleasance Dome (Venue 23), for more information go to: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/help-i-m-trapped-in-a-one-woman-show
ScotsGay Arts 