Bristol Old Vic
Dear Young Monster is another solo show. I seem to be seeing quite a lot of those lately. I guess I used to have a sense that one-man-show meant Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood or Alec McCowen reciting the whole of Saint Mark. That's not what solo shows mean nowadays: they are actual plays in which one actor conveys the whole story. Everyman is currently streaming Moriarty doing all the parts in Uncle Vanya, which I have so far managed to miss.
Pete MacHale's Dear Young Monster is an excellent example of the genre. In places, the performance is very physical: it made me think of the political clowning show we saw last year; or even of Andy Serkis doing his thing. But at other times the spoken acting is direct and understated; MacHale talks to the audience as if were telling his story to one particular friend. You can hear the scare quotes in his intonation. It isn't an exercise in virtuoso mimicry, but the other voices in the story are quietly well characterised; his fussy mother, the funny little girl next door, the friend he talks endlessly to about movies. There is a powerful sense of connection, of vulnerability, even, I suppose, of over-sharing.
MacHale wrote the piece, so I assume it is substantially auto-fiction. He's a young trans man, and the narrative takes us from his first disappointing appointment at the gender clinic to his first consultation about breast surgery. The central conceit is that the narrator and his best friend (mia, a cis woman) share an enthusiasm for schlock horror movies; and when Pete sees the classic Universal Frankenstein he feels an affinity with Boris Karloff's monster.
There is nothing new or surprising about the idea of gothic as a metaphor for the Other; or indeed, with queer readings of horror fiction, but the connection here is spontaneous and unaffected. The awkwardness of Karloff's movements provide a way of thinking about his own sense of not being at home in his body. In the opening scenes of the play he imagines himself digging his way out of a coffin, while well-meaning people ask him if he is quite sure he is certain he wants to do so. The metaphors are gentle and unforced: we are allowed to draw the connection between Karloff's long hours in the make-up chair and the process of transition for ourselves.
It is quite interesting and reassuring to know that Boris Karloff and Bella Legosi still weave their spell after nearly a century. Clips from the movies are back projected; and I noticed that we were not being invited to laugh at, say, the incredibly theatrical sequence where the Monster menaces Victor's bride in her bedroom. MacHale gives an incredibly perceptive reading of the iconic scene in which the Monster throws the little girl in the lake. We can see how this scene reflects a moment later in his own story -- when he completely loses control and behaves inappropriately at party; and at the end, when the little girl on his own street who has been referring to him as "next door lady" easily accepts that "he's a boy now". But none of this feels especially forced.
Transphobia rears its ugly head to some extent, of course: but the story is primarily a hopeful one about accepting, and other people accepting, that you are who you are. Pete MacHale is clearly a very considerable writer and actor -- I am reliably informed he is going to appear in some BBC sci-fi show next year -- and this show deserves to be seen more widely than on the smaller stage at the Old Vic.
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