Review: PERFORMANCE REVIEW at Outside The March

“What if? What if I did that? What if I just did that?”

Rosamund Small’s obsessive refrain as her anxieties take hold and she ponders self-harm at moments throughout her working life provides a jolt as potent as the latte you might be drinking at PERFORMANCE REVIEW, an Outside the March site-specific production at Morning Parade Coffee Bar on Crawford Street. The latte will be made by Small herself before the performance, as patrons are invited to arrive early to settle in with coffee or a cookie to anticipate listening to connected stories from Small’s career trajectory from barista to playwright and member of an artistic collective to TV writer’s room participant.

Inspired by everything from Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag to The Communist Manifesto, copies of which decorate the café tables, PERFORMANCE REVIEW doesn’t actually spend much narrative time inside the café setting despite never leaving it physically. What connects Small’s autobiographically-inspired stories isn’t this specific service industry, but being expected to provide service in industries where powerful men (and sometimes women) dangle status and the promise of advancement to take what they want.

At the same time, beginning the play as an earnest 18-year-old reading out her resume (“student council co-chair…detail-oriented…proficient in Microsoft Word”) and ending it at a more jaded 30, Small examines why theatre’s promise that you can “be a part of something” can be both lifesaving and dangerous.

While the coffee shop is more of a jumping-off point than a permanent location, Small and director Mitchell Cushman use the space to the fullest. Amongst the teas and bags of beans, seven bell jars encase objects that correspond to the seven stories Small tells. The cloches light up as Small transitions between stages in her life; production designer Anahita Dehbonehie also includes several delightful surprises in her lighting and other visual aspects around the cafe, with Heidi Chan’s sound design occasionally letting Small’s voice reverberate as if by magic.

Wide-eyed and sincere, as though seeking our approval, Small spends much of her time circulating around the café while telling stories that are alternately __ and stomach-curdling. She drenches herself at the water station to simulate a rain-soaked walk in England to meet the head of a theatre company who is eager to invite her into his car, despite not having any work on offer. She climbs a stepladder to deliver a story about a career triumph, later metaphorically stepping down to the floor as she finds herself moving down the career ladder.

Small’s ability to “really see people” and make connections, she reveals, is both superpower and hindrance, allowing her to effectively create art but leaving her vulnerable to those who see a connection as a precursor to potential exploitation.

From a man who tips the teenaged Small so well everyone but she is immediately suspicious, to lauded producers and directors who treat women like a product to direct, to a female showrunner so desperate to play at the level of the boys that she becomes similarly abusive only to reveal her own lack of power, the characters in Small’s tales are instantly recognizable. Throughout, her heartfelt performance, which moves forward at a fast, fluid clip, is very sympathetic, whether she’s describing her dreams, her disappointments, or the anxieties that threaten her whenever she stops moving. Her pointed, quick-witted observations both in the writer’s room and when she’s commenting on her own story belie her inability to take action, freezing and letting the intrusive thoughts take hold.

One of the difficulties of shaping an autobiographical show is that life doesn’t always follow a clear narrative trajectory; Small comments that she’s received notes that her “character” behaves illogically, when it’s just what actually happened. In fact, her reactions are refreshingly realistic, her supposed missteps most realistic of all. However, for all the show’s emotional impact (and there’s plenty of it), it doesn’t yet have a solid ending; in fact, it’s the second solo show about women’s agency I’ve seen in the past two weeks where the playwright/character tries to sidestep writing an ending by analyzing why she doesn’t have one and explaining her goals.

We don’t actually need an ending that sums everything up; in fact, by being more explicit about  the connections between the stories when they were so clear and delicately handled throughout, Small tries to control her audience’s reaction when she already has us.

Some unnecessary handholding aside, PERFORMANCE REVIEW is a charming, deceptively hard-hitting show about the burnout of trying to be a part of something that keeps trying to take something out of you.

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