Sex and Two Single Girls Rachel and Zoe: Uncorked and Uncensored
PrettyUgly Theatre Productions. By Hannah Gibson-Fraser and Jodi MirdenDirected by Alain Chauvin. Cast: Hannah Gibson-Fraser, Jodi Morden and Dan DeMarbre.
Bold, sassy, smart, sexy and very funny, Rachel and Zoe delivers. As the lights come up on the inevitable centre stage piece of furniture, the bane of so many minimal Fringe sets, don’t be fooled. No one who has seen this show will ever be able to look at that couch again without thinking of Rachel and Zoe, always uncorked and courageously uncensored.
From dancing and overlapping scenes, to the most steamy choreography you are likely to catch in the venue of a major institution of learning anywhere in this country, we enter the world and most intimate conversations of two friends, one about to be married, the other tripping the light fantastic with as many partners as she can muster to avoid commitment for what turns out to be a perfectly understandable reason.
This is the here and now of two young women. They like sex. They have sex. They don’t have sex. They feel good about the men in their lives. The men in their lives are non-communicating pains in the posterior. They take risks, they pull back, and they stay friends. What holds this all together is a dialogue that can best be described as unleashed.
Like a car bombing down a racetrack, Rachel and Zoe round the curve of each scene crossing the finish line triumphant, wineglass in hand. Though there are a few moments when the sadder, darker revelations of the script slightly scrape the sideboards, nothing in this play comes to a halt, and they never once get drunk.
Aside from an excellent script, the strength of the show rests with the performers. Hannah Gibson-Fraser and Jodi Morden have a palpable onstage chemistry. In the opening scenes both women bare their souls, and bodies. These are two young women who live in the flesh, and that means putting happiness and personal satisfaction at the top of the list of life’s priorities. Their goals are clear. This is the time of life for charting a course, making that one decision that may decide so much of what comes after. I did, personally, find it a bit unusual that careers never entered the discussion; but so bold a play is bound to raise a question or two for anyone watching. Which is the point.
One of the most amusing and again very well realized performances of the play comes from Dan DeMarbre. One might call him everyman, or Don Juan, or Jason, or Alex or any one of a number of roles he fulfills in the play. Demarbre’s exuberant commitment in portraying the landscape of all the men in Rachel and Zoe’s love lives is practically heroic. The Fringe Calisthenics Award is his, and this should not detract from the multiple emotional shifts he is required to perform.
Finally, kudos to director Alain Chauvin who infuses Rachel and Zoe with an insistent pace and boldly staged scenes juxtaposing past and present in a way that makes this production a swift, sweet love story that is an assault on the heart.
So, who should see this play? Anyone likely to have sex in the next twenty-four-hours. Or in the next week, maybe this month, a year from now…
Performances in Academic Hall – Venue 3