Boy in a Dress
“You can take those fragments and make a crown.” So says La JohnJoseph, who writes and performs this two-hour autobiographical show. You’ve got to admire someone baring their soul on stage and describing the travails of his life with both his sanity and his high heels intact.
Like our hero himself, however, Boy in a Dress has a bit of an identity crisis of its own, sitting uncomfortably between stage play, cabaret and performed-blog, the latter the format which would best suit the current text but the former the style to which the production, at least initially, aligns itself. Joseph tells his story fluently enough and with occasional wit. But, at least for me, it lacks the tonal variation or dramatic flair to make it emotionally engaging or theatrically satisfying.
Designer Cleo Pettit’s extraordinary and imaginative design turns the normally elegant Ovalhouse into a disjointed mindscape of detritus complete with wonky wardrobe and chalk-writing on the walls. The early appearance of video projection bodes well for the evening taking us into a confused life which Joseph will try and make sense of with us. But the lighting design, save for one striking moment in the first half, misses every opportunity for spectacle which this wonderful setting offers, depriving the production of what should have been a key ingredient in animating this evening of memories.
If Joseph the person has been trying to make sense of his own life by writing this show, Joseph the writer needs to make sense of how best to tell that story theatrically. Although ultimately less than the sum of its parts, this is exactly the kind of project which fringe theatre is ideally suited for. One hopes it’s not the last we’ll hear of this boy – in or out of a dress – and his story.
– Benet Catty
