Reviews

It’s almost dawn – on stage - as our drag queen narrator teeters on stage to begin her monologue.  The voluminous red wig, the sweeping false eyelashes, the dramatic make-up with a slash of lipstick are all the classic drag signs – complicated by a beard.  The stunning elegance of the simple evening dress is just a little undercut by the near cliché challenging aggression – intended to shock, to forestall criticism and delivered full throttle in a whiskey-and-cigarettes snarl – of booze, drugs and lots of sex.

This play is a unique experience for the audience as it is invited to absorb the emotions and storytelling completely by the spoken word. There is no managed stage movement at all.  The two characters, Melissa and Andrew, met in childhood and we follow their lives and dreams from notes, letters and cards that they wrote right through to their twilight years. We engage with their dreams and disappointments, their awkward adolescence, their mature misgivings and, of course, their many missed opportunities.

Cotton Wool Kid is a roller coaster of emotions, a tenderly crafted story that is happy to turn the audience upside down without warning. A story of love and loss, where things can change in a moment, where the unlikely is plausible, yet the story is completely believable. 

Photos of the cast interwoven with lovely shots of Italy play on a screen in the foyer of the theatre. Reproductions of Renaissance paintings adorn the walls. Others, stylishly framed in gold, surround the proscenium arch and reach around to encompass the stained-glass windows which are a feature of 1868 building that is the Genesian.

It’s so good to see a director and his creatives thinking beyond the stage and the script. Congratulations Mark! Your vision sets the scene as elegantly as E.M. Forster described it in 1908.