Lady drug dealers are rare. Even more rare are plays that narrate the inner-monologue battles of a lady drug dealer who’s hit her breaking point.
Work is going great. People need Charly because they need drugs. Therefore Charly is needed. We meet her on a day that breaks the norm of her monotonous life. She’s got two phones, one for work and one for her personal life. But when the power goes out, and there’s no way to revive her dead phones, she has no choice but to confront the day (or rather the late afternoon), in hopes of getting back to work.
Only safe in the confines of her flat where she lives alone, the world outside is a minefield of social interaction that sends her into a spiral. The monologues of her frantic inner-monologues progress, revealing her feeling unneeded in her personal life. Performer Alexa Davies maintains a not-entirely-cool exterior, but lets the cracks show just when needed. Only able to use her voice when she’s Lady Dealer, not Charly.
We see the stark juxtaposition of the character’s confidence when she’s dealing, as opposed to interacting with people without the safeguard of a motive or monetary exchange. The piece, written by Martha Watson Allpress, says something poignant about the courage it takes to interact with someone with the sole intention of connecting with them. We hear all the time that making friends as an adult is hard. But the worst of it happens when it’s impossible, you are cornered into a cycle of loneliness.
The few props are physical manifestations of elements in Charly’s life. Her work and personal phones, the coffee mug that provides her with the life source that is coffee. A yellow sweater her ex left behind, serving as a cruel reminder she didn’t always feel completely alone. As the audience sat, theatre in the round, enclosing the actress in spaces of safety or havoc, there was a slow burning intimacy.
The more time went on, the more she tried to hide her pain, the more it became so overwhelmingly obvious. It was a great display of luscious patterns of language coated in excellently executed humour and honest portrayals of hurt. In a crescendo of truth, the work was a carefully crafted look into Charly’s lonely world and how the world outside it may or may never provide a way out.
Lady Dealer
14:00 @ Summerhall – ROUNDABOUT
Aug 20-21, 23-27
