EDINBURGH 2023: Review: TEA AND MILK, C Venues

Breakups aren’t easy, but she’s surprised she hasn’t been able to cry. Stuck selling horse extract face creams (the vanity project of a rich man’s bored wife) and desperately trying to find romance, a young immigrant woman feels like she’s failing. Her ten-year high school reunion back in her home country is the chance to prove how successful she is, so she puts on a revealing, expensive outfit. But everyone else is getting married, having children, or buying multi-million mansions in Dubai while she’s struggling in London with a weird job and a bleak future ahead of her.

Edith Alibec writes a charismatic personality with a bitter edge and a silver tongue. She is incredibly funny, with a darkly sarcastic worldview cemented by side glances and sardonic asides. We are witnesses to her pain, becoming the confidantes of her most private thoughts. She immediately becomes a universally relatable individual to most millennials. From her relationship with her mother and her abandoned dreams, to the search for love in the wrong places, Alibec pinpoints the contemporary malaise of women in their 30s.

She is an excellent writer, weaving the plot into a tapestry of commentary and personal experience. Dana Paraschiv directs and acts as script editor, tying the production with a stable pace and hooking the audience, making them want to know more. It’s a wholesome, heartbreaking journey.

She mourns her character’s actions, questioning her indirectly and acknowledging the toxic relationship she has with the men who enter her life. She twists their manipulations to her own benefit with tongue-in-cheek clap-backs, adding an exploration of sexuality and eroticism in the mix. Ultimately, she paints a picture of a young woman who hasn’t found out who she really is. It’s bittersweet and relatable, tragic and entertaining. 

Tea and Milk runs at C Arts aquila on the following dates: 7-14, 16-27 August.

To post a comment, you must register and login.