Review: THE WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, The Cockpit

A reporter and her camerawoman visit a family after one of their twin children disappears. Peculiar family relationships and a modest social critique are unearthed in a New York that's bordering another World War, where hipsters and criminals coexists in the grim landscape of the city.

The Werewolf of Washington Heights lands in London directed by Sophie O'Shea after its Off-Broadway premiere in a convoluted and slightly confusing production. It's a play about too many things. Writer Christie Perfetti Williams introduces a society where foreigners are made to wear microchips that control their movements by the government, where women are still inferior beings who need to be kept in check, and where ICE and the DEA enforce drastic methods to control the population - a society not different from today's in its nature.

Its many leitmotifs are presented as a cluster of mishandled information that turn the identity of the material into a flimsy membrane that only covers an assembly of miscellaneous characters. Kristin Duffy and Christina May are Izzy and Violet, mothers to Maggie (Iman Boujel) and Mary. They live with Imogene (Eliza McClelland), Izzy's oddball mother who shows all the signs of being a nymphomaniac.

The lack of tension and grueling pace don't make it easy to see what Perfetti Williams' main point should be. A strong feminist line runs through it from the start at Imogene's hand, but it becomes laughable with her hippy approach to life. It's probably the addition of personal details and storylines that don't actually say anything about the characters that make the play somewhat self-indulgent.

These elements dilute the script and lead its political side to get lost in a piece that's overly long as well as tonally strange. The show presents, however, rather compelling performances spearheaded by McClelland who waltzes around the stage with flowing garments, half white witch, half weird grandmother.

Unfortunately, the show as a whole misses its mark and isn't the accomplished social critique that it promises to be.

The Werewolf of Washington Heights runs at The Cockpit until 23 August as part of Camden Fringe.

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