“I would rather be anywhere. Anywhere else in the world, right now. Than right here.” These are the first, halting words spoken by Amanda Wilkin as the awkward thirtysomething Myah, who stands peeping out from behind a screen.
Directed by Elayce Ismail, the story begins but the screen barely opens. Myah holds it defensively and looks out as if we are unwanted guests at this one-woman show.
And what a wondrous weepie of a show this is, telling the story of Myah, who walks into one dead-eyed office job after another. She also walks out of an unsupportive relationship to rent a room on the 15th floor of a tower block, living with an elderly Jamaican landlady called Mildred and confronting her state of “insurmountable loneliness”, in which she is disconnected from friends, colleagues and the black side of her mixed heritage.
The set’s narrow screen opens gradually as Myah creeps out – a clam emerging from its shell, still curled in on herself. One screen only opens to reveal another in Rosanna Vize’s matryoshka doll of a set, which contains surprising rooms within rooms. This stage design – playful, inventive, full of unexpected depths – perfectly mirrors the hidden profundities of Wilkin’s script. Though she keeps to a tone of comic whimsy and bathos, the material is sometimes bleak but always engrossing and emotionally resonant.
At work, Myah is a misfit and also a bit of an accidental Bartleby figure, preferring not to blindly conform and resisting office hypocrisies; there is a fantastic early scene in which her company rounds up employees of colour for a photoshoot as proof of their diversity drive, which includes the cleaner, and in which she finds herself angered and throwing punches.
In between Myah’s story, there are surreal interludes featuring a voiceover and Nina Dunn’s interplanetary projections, which tell of what else is happening around the universe. This could easily feel jarring but is oddly moving.
The plot drives towards a kind of platonic love story between Myah and Mildred, which comes to hold such alchemical power that it leaves us emotionally undone, and euphoric. Mildred is a pensioner hero, teaching Myah the importance of community, connection and how to be comfortable in her own skin. She reminds her of her own fire and the debt to firebrands, activists and black British heroes of the past. It is all warm and uplifting stuff without being mawkish. I defy anyone to walk out untouched.
Shedding a Skin is at Soho theatre, London, until 17 July.
