Guest Review - TINTED
Having been racing around the Australian summer Fringe Circuit, I sadly missed Tinted at Vault Festival. Luckily, guest reviewer Calum Nedd shares his thoughts on the show below.
Tinted - Studio @ Vault Festival - Tuesday 11th February- Sunday 16th February 2020
★★★★★
Tinted is the debut full-length monologue from brand new company Scripped Up, whose mission is to champion D/deaf, disabled and neurodivergent writers. Written as a disabled response to the #metoo movement, by disabled playwright Amy Bethan Evans and staged as accessibly as possible in the VAULT Festival studio space, this brave company put its money where its mouth is, and this piece delivers on almost every level. This is a heartfelt, moving and funny story about the life (and love-life) of a young disabled woman, presented by an exciting new company.
The narrative follows Laura (Charlotte Eyres) a young disabled woman navigating her way through life, and, as one would expect, the piece pays particular attention to the lived experience of a disabled person, most notably throughout her formative romantic experiences, but also in other aspects of her life. Eyres delivers an engaging performance that, after a slightly static start, never loses energy and keeps the audience enthralled throughout. That in itself is no mean feat, as Laura jumps to a number of different episodes throughout her life from childhood until the present day, some of which Eyres dances through to Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’. Eyres negotiates a complex and well-written narrative timeline with aplomb, one moment bursting with childhood nativity, the next with a more grown up emotional vulnerability.
Evans’ skill as a writer shines through the piece. The monologue delivers a sensitive, emotive story, sprinkled with a healthy dose of humour that had the audience chuckling along in places. The consistent pop-culture references act as an amusing anchor point to the real world and would appeal to both the millennial and Gen X sense of nostalgia. Elske Waite’s direction comes across as simple and effective, she has done just enough to allow Eyres’ performance and Evans’ words to stay front and centre of the audience’s experience. The transitions were clever and effective uses of light and sound to demonstrate the shifts in time in the piece, pleasingly reminiscent of the 2018 production of Dennis Kelly's Girls and Boys (another one woman show which jumps to various time points in the narrative). The design is simple, just a chair that Eyres interacts with at different points, and for a festival show no more is really needed - although it would be interesting to see what would be done with design if this piece were to have its own run in a theatre.
Tinted offers a valuable and necessary window into these lived experiences, highlighting especially the problematic nature of consent in this context. I genuinely hope this piece continues to grow and has the future life it deserves.
Writer: Amy Bethan Evans
Director: Elske Waite
Performer: Charlotte Eyres
Producer: Amy Toledano
Movement Director: Sarah Lamb
Sound Designer: Vili Chaushev
LX/AV Designer: Timothy Kelly
Keep in touch with the future life of Tinted on social media: Twitter: @TintedPlay , Facebook: /TintedPlay
Instagram: #TintedPlay
Tinted played at Vaults until 16th February. Calum Nedd is a London-based freelance writer and editor.
