Review: MAIN CHARACTER ENERGY, Soho Theatre

“I was born for the stage”

From the day she was born, Temi Wilkey has been destined to perform. This is made clear from her grand entrance into Soho Theatre Upstairs, dressed in a gorgeous and frilly red dressing gown that she slowly removes to reveal her bright pink outfit underneath as the audience cheers. Main Character Energy is “an autobiographical one woman show,” but it is also a “flamboyant parody” of the theatrical category at the same time. Being both writer and performer, Temi Wilkey truly becomes the main character of the night.

The beginning focuses on how Wilkey got into performing, being cast as Peaseblossom in her school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream but tragically being unable to perform as she has to have surgery to remove a hernia, which she claims she received at the young age of eight years old for doing all of the heavy-lifting in the school play.

From here, her mother signs her up for Stagecoach, hoping she’ll make some new friends, but it only leads to her being more flamboyant and desperately searching for stardom. Wilkey quite literally chases the spotlight throughout the show, constantly moving around the stage to find where Lauren Woodhead’s lighting design has put the spotlight next. 

There are references to the classic structure of a one woman show throughout, including Wilkey giving names to the three acts of the show, with titles like “Losing My Voice” and “Embracing My Body.” When she talks about putting on masks to fit into a society based on white supremacy and colonialism, Wilkey puts on a literal white mask, doing some interpretive dance around the stage. She stops the show several times, making “live cuts” and working with the person in the tech booth to keep within the running time.

At times it does grow a little difficult to tell which parts are sincere and which are simply parodying the genre of the one woman show, but these moments are still just as enjoyable whether Wilkey is doing them for laughs or for more serious reactions. One part of the show has Wilkey performing an open-mic style poem about being a “diaspora baby,” which receives both laughs and snaps from audience members. 

Some moments, however, are clearly serious, particularly those that focus on Wilkey’s dreaming of playing Juliet and the real-life reactions to Francesca Amewudah-Rivers playing the role on the West End opposite Tom Holland. The racial abuse towards Amewudah-Rivers went on for months and the actress received hate mail and even death threats. But, even hearing about all of the abuse Amewudah-Rivers received, Wilkey still wants to play Juliet and says she will willingly take whatever people say to her if it means getting to play her dream role. 

But, according to Wilkey, this is not a serious show. She claims that she doesn’t want this to be too emotional, saying, “I am not an angry black woman” after a powerful bit about her childhood. After these more emotional parts, Wilkey, believing that she has lost the audience, breaks into dance, trying to win back those who may have checked out once the music stopped. Each time an audience member looks away for even a second  - even if they are just blinking - she calls them out, declaring “I’m gonna need all of you to look at me.” It’s a funny bit but also has some more serious undertones - how far will performers go for attention? How dedicated must an audience be?

Above all, however, this is a show about joy, with Wilkey learning how to embrace herself, especially her body, through dance. Even as she struggles to find her place in a world that seems to be against her, she finds her body in the club, falling in love with dance and beginning to feel sexy for the first time. Life is a music video and Wilkey is the main character, giving us all of the energy she has. 

Main Character Energy is a brilliant take on the one-woman show that allows Wilkey to show off both her acting and writing skills at the same time, giving the audience a performance they won’t soon forget. Wilkey is both a fantastic writer and performer and I look forward to seeing what’s next - especially if it is her as Juliet!

Main Character Energy runs until 15 March at Soho Theatre. A BSL Performance is on 10 March and a BLACK OUT Night on 4 March.

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