Billed as a semi-autobiographical story about how a couple met, fell in love, and then mucked it up, Nathaniel J Hall’s second theatre piece following the acclaimed ‘First Time’ is a remarkable show. Leaning into the theatrical elements and opportunities from live staging, Hall and his co-star Josh-Susan Enright conjure vividly an intimate story of contemporary dating, love, and navigating the iceberg-sized baggage brought by two three-dimensional humans to a close relationship. There’s a fragile and precious safety the pair share, a bond forged in tentative and hopeful trust from separate trauma that blossoms before our eyes as the pair messily and beautifully fall into step together.
This is a beautifully queer-specific theatrical piece, cutting into and exposing a cross-sectional slice of modern dating, conversations and behaviour. ‘Toxic’ is so well considered and paced, from the emoji-packed meet-cute, blasting club nights, graphic courtship, to the licked-finger-to-the-wind vulnerability that trauma-bonds the unnamed pair together and ultimately blows them up again in their mutually experienced betrayals. There’s a gentle forgiveness to the portrayal and writing of each too, as they are humanly messy, desperately seeking acceptance for their own self-perceived flaws and both heart-breakingly different and yet matched.
I also really appreciated that in an age where so much of theatre is presented as a live kind of movie-watching experience, Hall’s ‘Toxic’ crafted so well its staging. From the lighting, to the separate era Britney costumes, and artfully constructed delivery of explicit scenes, on to the deliberate separation of microphone work and off-mic performance, it was craftily executed to the max.
“This is your story, and his story, and their story…”, Hall declares at the top and tail of the show, and all around the auditorium it’s true as shared hearts break again in sympathy and empathy and memory.
The Old Market, 6 May 2024, 7.30pm (Also running May 7)
