Edinburgh review: Expensive Shit (Traverse Theatre)
© Sally Jubb
It’s the tale of two shitters – one in Glasgow, one in Lagos – and, sure enough, Adura Onashile’s play shows us both the best and the worst of times. Well, ish.
Today, Tolu is a toilet attendant in Glasgow: "queen" of the ladies’ loos. She’s a recognisable figure, one we’ve all brushed off on a night out. Anonymous to the point of invisibility, she’s also privy to all sorts of intimacies, and, if she’s dumped on by the system, with no hourly wage, she’s forced to impose its shittiest side on others, pushing perfume and lipstick in a bid for small change. Onashile gives her a voice – and not a straightforwardly sympathetic one either. Sabina Cameron plays her with a cold shoulder and a kiss of the teeth. Her bitterness is understandable. Her betrayals are unforgivable.
At home in Nigeria, things were different. Flashbacks take us back to the legendary Shrine nightclub in Lagos, where Tolu and three friends rehearse dance routines in the bogs, hoping to catch the eye of the club’s Afrobeat star Fela Kuti. For them, dancing’s a way out of poverty – even if it means the odd illicit extra. For Tolu, though, it’s a chance to be seen, to be heard, and to disappear into herself. It gives her a podium from which to preach.
That’s Tolu’s tragedy: not that she’s swapped one life for another, but that she’s sold out – or, rather, had to sell out – on her principles. Where once she stood up to male onlookers, now she tarts women up to secure themselves a shag. Onashile asks whether the two clubs really are world’s apart. Worse, Tolu’s complicit in a tawdry scam – one lifted straight out of the news pages. As at Glasgow’s infamous Shimmy Club, a space that should be a sanctuary is not as secluded as it makes out.
Expensive Shit‘s just as exposed: still a draft or two away from completion. Though she’s onto a sharp contrast, Onashile gives us the skeleton of a story without fully fleshing it out. It repackages reality too literally in Glasgow, and skims over it too quickly in Lagos. More context on Kuti’s Kalakuta commune and the political unrest outside it might ground Tolu’s past in reality. As it is, Onashile sketches out the two situations without finding much narrative drive. Mostly, her play’s made up of stock chitter-chatter.
On Karen Tennent’s cage-like design, as obstructive to sightlines as to credibility (what, no basins?), Onashile’s own production looks a little threadbare. You get tired of seeing the same faces popping in for a pish and, where it should provide the lifeblood of Lagos, Lucy Wild’s choreography often drags.
Expensive Shit runs at the Traverse at various times until 28 August (except 8th, 15th, 22nd).
