Some people leave “invisible marks on your body which only you know are there,” the narrator tells us. She is speaking about men she meets and to whom she gives a fantasy life, to give an erotic charge to her own existence. They “stride across your mental landscape” and you puff them up “like balloons”. You wish they weren’t so big, but they keep you company. There are so many elegant lines in Cesca Echlin’s debut play, which was staged at the Edinburgh fringe in 2023.
Directed by Echlin, it comprises three vignettes about the erotic potential of solo fantasy and projection. The first part is about a university student and her arrogant tutor, whose indifference and harsh words enact a psychic violence. But rather than heading into Oleanna territory, the student tells us she likes it. That sadomasochistic dynamic continues into the next story, in which she confesses to a man on a dating app her desire to be demeaned. He stays virtual in her life but provides masturbatory pleasure for her nonetheless. The final tale is of a romantic attraction that again does not materialise into physical reality but takes up enormous space in her imagination.
The narrator, played by Abby McCann, has only a mic and a stool, yet captivates with her storytelling: nothing else is needed. McCann gives an immaculate performance, bringing alive lines that might otherwise sound overwrought. The play of spotlights (lighting design by Skylar Turnbull Hurd) brings its own drama, as does the music (composed by Sarah Spencer).
While the three parts have an almost magical power in themselves, they leave you dangling as a whole. Even if this is deliberate, it feels under-nourishing – a showcase of beautiful writing and performance, rather than a fully rounded story.
It is hard to see the progression within the tales: the timeframe seems to go backward, ending with the narrator at the age of 19. Is there a backward appraisal going on? It appears to be simply a celebration of fantasy and a flaunting of the control it gives the narrator. There is little analysis of how remote and unreal this kind of projection might feel, how it might steer towards narcissism or be distinguished from it. The narrator does not seem to have that level of self-reflection. She only wants to describe these events, as if to relive their erotic or masturbatory pleasures.
Yet it is still an alluring and intense piece of theatre which showcases a hugely promising writer and actor.
At King’s Head theatre, London, until 26 January
