Camden Fringe 2024
Gloria’s Gift
Léona McLoughlin
Genre: Comedy, Dark Comedy, Drama, Fringe Theatre
Venue: The Old Red Lion Theatre
Festival: Camden Fringe
Low Down
What would you do if you met God? What or who is God actually? And how does God influence us? These and other questions are posed and maybe even answered in this highly recommended and very enjoyable moral play for the 21st century by gifted newcomer Léona McLoughlin in her first play.
Review
We enter the space, there is a chair, a table with a carafe of water and a glass, a box. It is a typical fringe play set up, maybe even stereotypical. The audience scrambles for seats as far apart as possible from the next person in this hot, but just about bearable room. We clutch our drinks hoping to get some cooling from the rapidly melting ice cubes.
Enter a lady in austere attire (played by Erica Tavares-Kouassi), sensible hair-do and so much gravitas she is visibly finding it hard to walk. She looks like your usual Senior Paralegal, who has been so long with the company she is part of the furniture. “What’s in a name?” She asks only to answer herself with pathos that could stop a train: “Legacy, Pride, Identity”. The onslaught of theatrical serious is doubled when she exclaims “Gloria”. Some in the audience probably were tempted to blurt out ‘in excelsis deo’ at this point, while others are wondering if this is meant for real. Suddenly Tavares-Kouassi performs the most overexaggerated and slightly unfitting physical theatre movements imaginable. The performer’s self-awareness of the ridiculousness of the acting is palatable. The audience giggles and while I still think ‘oh, this is a comedy?’, the actor looks straight at the audience with a face so severe you wouldn’t be surprised if she started to perform a Haka the next second. While the audience is in stitches her face is as carved marble. That is some self-control.
Needless to say, this is not how the play progresses. However, any further description of the action would definitely fall into the category ‘massive spoiler’, so this reviewer will draw a veil over it. Sadly, as there is some great acting, a bit of magic – sorry miracles – and the odd coup de theatre that deserve high praise in this show. Much of the enjoyment of this play comes from the way it unfolds. The stories that are told and the juxtaposition of the audience expectations with what actually happens on stage. The author Léona McLoughlin takes us on a journey in which we face some home truths that we have known for ages and don’t want to admit we know. There are also plenty of laughs on the way and some clever jokes, visual and intellectual, that make the time fly by. When the play ends, it doesn’t end. The show might be over, but the essence of the story will stay with you long after you have left the venue.
McLoughlin is a very talented playwright as well as a skilled performer. She manages to ease the audience with comedy to engage with a very serious topic of our time. The blurb on the flyer reads, that the play is “reminding us of the power of human connection in our often lonely world.” She writes about all of us and pulls our innermost on stage. Gloria’s Gift? Is strangely an immersive play with the audience remaining in their seats. Overall, a very well- crafted play with a sincere message delivered with humour and sensitivity that is much needed in our times.
Nicky Allpress has directed with insight and feeling a play around a sensitive topic. She has created a performance that forces us to laugh out loud and at times fight back tears. She uses the full gamut of the actors’ skillset and creates believable characters, yes, even Gloria, God herself, who becomes the lady two doors down.
