Review: Underneath (Soho Theatre)

'Welcome!' exclaims a strange creature to the audience as the house lights go down on Fishamble’s Underneath. It’s an effusive, warm greeting, and one which feels at odds with the situation of the character delivering it. Dressed all in black with skin the colour of decomposing flesh, Pat Kinevane plays Her, a woman talking in her tomb from the afterlife.

But Her seems not at all unhappy about being stuck with no daylight and just the damp walls for company. In fact, in gentle Irish tones she makes us feel as if we’ve stumbled into a friendly kitchen, where she’s put the kettle on and is about to regale us with the tale of her life.

Don’t be fooled. As soon as she makes you feel at home, Kinevane’s character whips all the sense of safety from under us. The third of Kinevane’s one-man plays created with Fishamble, both performed and penned by him, Underneath is a master class in off-beat storytelling that has the power to make you laugh and to haunt in equal measure.

Her was created from characters Kinevane has encountered from his home town in Ireland and beyond. At age nine, Her is hit by lightning, her face permanently scarred and her body wracked by regular fits for the rest of her life. She becomes the outcast in school, a shadow to her mother, and gets through life by hiding from other people.

Underneath is a lot about how we treat those we deem as ugly: Her’s life is defined by her face. The things that happen to her are a direct result of disgust felt by those around her and her own acute shame. The character’s lack of experience with human interaction gets her into trouble when a young rich boy arrives at school and first manipulates her, then humiliates her.

The story is all delivered by Kinevane, who has a friendly demeanour and regularly breaks into chat with the audience. He singles people out – coming back to them at different points in the story and asking their opinions. He’s very funny and these sections feel almost like standup. But it’s the moments he is pulled back into his character, with a blast of sound, or a sudden spasm that wake you up to the torment inside.
Jim Culleton directs the piece with a light hand, leaving Kinevane’s skills at befriending an audience to take over. Kinevane’s portrayal, infused by golden touches of costume and ancient Egyptian poses, has a taste of the demonic drag act about it.

The staging and performance are hard to fault, but the story is a little disappointing. Though it is enthralling, it eventually feels improbable; a story that just doesn’t feel real enough, despite truthfully and deftly highlighting humanity's potential for cruelty. Still, the opportunity to while away an evening with Kinevane and his remarkable creation is definitely not something to pass up.

Underneath runs at the Soho Theatre until 17 December.