FringeReview UK 2024
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Chess Hayden
Genre: Absurd Theatre, Contemporary, Dark Comedy, Dramedy, Farce, Fringe Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Hope Theatre, Islington
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
You’d do anything for your best friend. But. There’s a body you can’t revive, even though you’re a doctor. A proposition doing serious damage to your conscience. And a third person who’ll do wonders for twisting your Hippocratic Oath in knots. Especially when she’s your recent ex. What to do. Keep playing Rock, Paper, Scissors or call for the cops? Written and directed by Chess Hayden, this 65-minute farcical thriller from 2023 is revived at Hope Theatre, Islington till May 11th.
A joyous revival. Though working in TV production, Hayden’s writing is too good, too well-shaped not to develop in theatre instead.
Written and Directed by Chess Hayden, Set & Costume Designer Chess Hayden, Lighting Designer and Sound Designer/Technician Daniel Philipson, Stage Manager Jaymie Quin Stewart, Artwork & Trailer Chess Hayden, Press Chloe Nelkin Consulting.
Till May 11th
Review
You’d do anything for your best friend. But. There’s a body you can’t revive, even though you’re a doctor. A proposition doing serious damage to your conscience. And a third person who’ll do wonders for twisting your Hippocratic Oath in knots. Especially when she’s your recent ex. What to do. Keep playing Rock, Paper, Scissors or call for the cops? Written and directed by Chess Hayden, this 65-minute farcical thriller from 2023 is revived at Hope Theatre, Islington till May 11th.
There’s a couple on a sofa. Dylan (Jimmy Roberts) like Trevor Howard in Brief Encounter is looking at the bleeding nose of bestie Lucy (Emma Lo), who’s been hit hard. Yes he’s a doctor but they’re both in shock.
It’s not surprising. Jake’s sprawling at the foot of the stairs. Jake the drug-dealing sexually exciting totally unstable and now drunken violent boyfriend of Lucy. Well ex, as he’s dead, crashing down those stairs after a struggle, and though Dylan’s tried CPR hard, there’s nothing to do. Save call the police and Lucy confess to manslaughter. And. Well didn’t Dylan try to stop Lucy being struck?
What follows riffs off Orton’s Loot and Funeral Games, though Hayden’s not an absurdist: the premises are real till farcically not.
If you think The Diceman turns a life on chance, how about finding the dilemma first and chancing after? Hayden’s dialogue – there’s a touch of improv too – gleams like a dark star with sharp edges. Often overlapping it spikes serious questions as flat-out farce.
After all, Lucy reasons – coming out of shock – manslaughter means she won’t get to ski, Dylan won’t finish his prestigious placement as a houseman at a London hospital. Dylan’s all for transparency, but gradually is edged into a game of – the title says it all. Very slowly Dylan sees some virtue in what Lucy proposes.
It’s complicated. I mean it’s complicated by the arrival of Dylan’s ex Jemma (Megan Cooper) who wants to retrieve her pink holdall (metaphor coming on) now stached in a cupboard which Lucy and Dylan really don’t want to open. In fact Lucy’s frantically closing it as Jemma blithely, infuriatingly claims Aquarius is a water sign. “But it’s Aqua” she protests.
Cooper in a shift of eyes and mouth-curling insinuates one who never rests till they’ve pulled everything apart then complains someone’s done it to them.
Cooper’s wonderfully unsympathetic Jemma really wants to get back with Dylan, who himself is beginning to have conflicted feelings. And Lucy? She never much liked Jemma and everyone hates Jake.
Jemma will leave nothing alone. Lucy is set on survival’s magnetic north, and Dylan is pin-balling his conscience. All is set for another round of if not funeral games then a dare. We end on a precipice. Will they all prove a self-preservation society?
Roberts baffles beautifully as the decent man caught between poles of conscience and attraction, sheer survival and his warm nature. He moves from quiet conciliation to a single roar: a man at a total loss. Despite his vocal powers Roberts uses this range just once. It’s a winning performance, a man not hapless but quick-witted. It’s just none of us are as quick to move towards such irreducible logic as Lucy’s on a Sunday night in October.
Lo’s wonderfully expressive: you see each thought scud across, each option weighed, her body lean to its conclusions. She registers collapse as doubt shudders across. “I’m a bad person.” “No Lucy you’re not” and Roberts’ Dylan proves himself true barometer of everyone caught in a dilemma, where paper-cut certainties are about as useful as scissors against a rock.
Daniel Philipson’s lighting is neatly pointed and subtle, his sound matched to the recorded voices, and the sofa, wardrobe and props a portable world. Hayden’s direction is as crisp as her writing. A joyous revival. Though working in TV production, Hayden’s writing is too good, too well-shaped not to develop in theatre instead.
