Fried Eggs, Theatre Upstairs

It is a tale of two sisters, and the guy who works in the chipper. The production has another tale: the wonderfully assured performance from Karen Connell, bringing an aloofness to Eloise, yet embueing her twin sister, Lulu, with a more cheeky, sensual, quality; Lulu is her real name Eloise tells us matter-of-factly, which isn't short for anything. All of this is wrapped into less than one hour by Lindsay Jane Sedgwick, who like Connell, has a number of hats: writer and director, and between the two they manage to generate a style that is both standoffish, yet direct, in a very unrushed manner.

Oddly enough Brendan, the guy from the chipper, is perhaps the most memorable character, who in some ways brings the two sisters together, while showing us what sets them apart, although this is secondary to the style and delivery of the play. A loud ticking starts the play off, and is used to change from Eloise to Lulu. It all begins with Eloise telling us about her twin sister and why she tries to go to places she thinks Lulu has never been. Initially is seems as if Sedgwick will slip into simply describing what happens, but thankfully very early on she snaps out of it and the two sisters start talking about the events, helped by quite a number of food and biscuit images thrown in. 

Eloise is prim and proper, the way her mother wanted her, not smiling much and when you do it is for the right reason and place, one of the different ways their mother looked at the world, but there are deeper fears and experiences running through their childhoods. Lulu is more adventurous, perhaps too much so, and because they are twins Eloise gets mistaken for her and gets the brunt of whatever Lulu has left behind. 

One of the real delights of this piece, apart from the wonderful way Connell becomes the chipper in tone, accent and stance, is the way she manages to keep her distance yet address the audience directly, drawing us in. Connell steals the show in a slight of hand way in her long white shirt, as she moves around - at times stand-up style - Aoife Fealy's set that looks like a large room with the curtains drawn at the back, as Brian Murray's lights add some colour and shade, fading out in an unrushed, and effective, manner at the conclusion. 

It is a curious enough tale with language that is both everyday, while at times heightened. It ably brings us through the story of the twins, but the main surprise in this piece is Connell's performance, and of course the guy from the chipper from whom she orders the fried eggs.