B(r)itches, Project Arts Centre, Dublin

Who would have thought that a simple flipchart could hold so much power? What looks like a plain setting, a few chairs, a phone book, a table, a bag of munchies and a large bottle of water, set between all this is the flip chart. It is the turning of each page that gives our actors their cues and tasks utilising a number of styles, ideas and situations that feels a bit like improv, as they don't know what's coming next.

From the outset you know this is different, whatever walls are supposed to be present are not as the first actor, named in the programme as The Blonde One, let's us know that she's early. Of course this raises the question is she acting or not? From there, her colleague arrives, and they start with their first idea, to play as men, which does bring about some funny ideas and sterotypes, all done with a dose of silliness and irreverence. Here on in it careens from one thing to another via auditions, to Brecht and then Shakespeare as a way of geting our two actors to perform. They even get a short break, which they take in front of us. The skill here is making it feel like it is unscripted, although we all know that it is, and it is this' isn't it or is it' that finally plays itself out well in an interesting ending. 

B(r)itches started out in the Collaborations Festival last February, and with the 'scriptor' Dylan Coburn Gray, the idea is held together quite well, the break being a fun part of the 'show'. In the middle section it does feel like it loses energy and ideas, but thankfully it finishes like it starts, strongly, almost in a circular style and is at that point very good. It does supply a lot of laughs, many observational, or how we view things, rightly or wrongly, as well as being able to see the moments of fear and panic in The Brunette One's eyes from time to time, until of course, the humour isn't  present.

One of the strengths of the work is the way the two actresses, Leah Minto and Claire Galvin, play off each other, both with a sense of playfulness and innocence, although there is the feeling that The Blonde One may be a little bit more expereinced. In some ways it has a Roar of The Greasepaint feel between the two, although not in an antogonistic way, although the Rent song idea perhaps doesn't work so well. They maintain the naturalness of it all throughout very well. Ciaran Gallagher and James Healy put on a good light design, especially in the Brecht section, and add a little bit more to it at other times. 

It is a very clever work that has its moments of fun and comedy, while having the ability to look at things from a different angle, and to see how far would you go. What looks on the surface as a quirky piece that takes a little bit of an inward look at acting, there is that chance encounter between reality and playing, and at what point does it end and reality starts. Perhaps I am reading too much into it, but what struck me at one point is that stories can be told in different styles and still be the same story in the end. And isn't that why poeple go to theatre, to see a story, characters and be entertained? A curious piece that doesn't take itself too seriously, but does take itself seriously all at the same time. It is this idea, with strong writing, that moves it along and holds it all together.