"Must be all the scissoring!"Fairview Slopes—Starring the appealing former Animal Control actress Kelli Ogmundson, Mitch and Murray Productions stages the North American premiere of British playwright Phoebe Eclair-Powell's gripping but deeply unsettling one-woman play. Harm is a powerful solo performance that requires the proper stamina and emotional range to truly express our toxic culture of digital discomfort and warped social realities through a single person's experiences.
Directed by M&M Artistic Associate Jennifer Copping, Ogmundson inhabits the role of a deeply unhappy real estate agent with few friends, family, or support who becomes parasocially fixated on her new, hyper-curated social media influencer client after selling her a home. Where the play goes and how Ogmundson's terrifying yet hilarious performance, sporting an amusingly trashy English accent, culminates in a bleak personal journey of self-delusion and obsession, is wholly engrossing as her character goes to unexpected dramatic places emotionally.
Ogmundson delivers Eclair-Powell's hyper-sharp, extended monologue about toxic compulsion with a suitable enthusiasm and vigour for seventy minutes straight, with hardly a breath or moment to catch herself. Her unnamed protagonist spirals after becoming horribly addicted to and infatuated with the online validation and rush of supposed "likes" from strangers as she grows closer in proximity to her mildly famous client (shades of Ingrid Goes West). It's a darkly funny character exploration that impressively resists completely condemning the protagonist's actions as we come to understand the full scope of her deep sadness.
Mitch and Murray's impressive production of Harm—the first staging outside of its native UK—lives up to its tricky yet timely subject matter about falsely attaining our dream lives or personas through deceptively all-too-common social imagery. Ogmundson's natural charisma, fearless physicality, and stage presence ground the disturbing topical material about our fake screen-based realities and parasocial obsessions of the dark web.
Harm runs live on stage at Studio 16 inside La Maison de la Francophonie de Vancouver until Marth 29th.
More | YVArcade / 2021 / Straight
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