Lauren Romano takes in absurdist theatre and the smell of sweat at Hen and Chickens.
As I creep into my seat on the front row for Stripped at Hen and Chickens, I'm out of breath and companion-less. I somehow lost her to a mob of Arsenal fans who swept us the wrong way down Highbury Station Road before a random woman with suitcases tried to pilfer my plus one ticket. It takes me a while to adjust to my new surroundings. But time is not a luxury that this snappy piece of absurdist comedy affords. The stage is crowded with seven actors, the clammy whiff of perspiration pervades, and then there’s the talking. The mox of high octane spurts of dialogue, razor sharp one-liners and other incessant babble is so utterly bonkers that I'm initially bamboozled. It’s like I’m watching an episode finale of Eastenders on mute. Face-pulling and characters falling about all over the place follows, but what’s actually occurring? Who knows.
The story is supposed to go like so: a man is eating his breakfast when suddenly two pesky psychopomps appear, tell him he’s dead and that the only chance he has of resurrection is if he can fathom the meaning of his existence. It's a tricky predicament to find yourself in, sure. The protagonist ends up being dragged from pillar to post, paying fruitless visits to all and sundry in search of answers. First he calls on his mum, a hilariously portrayed chatterbox with saggy boobs who warns him, “You can’t die before me, what will the neighbours say?” Then he turns to a priest and – my favourite character of the evening – a skull t-shirt-wearing, strangely normal-seeming Death who has “intimacy issues”, but it's all to no avail.
Amid the plot confusion, several notable highlights shine through; a cool framing device works wonders to portray the nonsense viewpoints of cheesy and ill-informed American newsreaders, whilst there’s also some excellent in-tandem choreography. The minimalist staging and use of props works well to focus attention on quick-witted exchanges that are so totally off the wall that it's ridiculously silly and smirk-raising.
But you really can’t afford to take you eye off the ball for a second in this play and the drama comes to a halt so suddenly that I’m not expecting it at all. Although it’s quite obvious I don’t fully understand the script, hats off to writer Michael Eckett for throwing everything he’s got at it. This challenging, manic mix of dialogue and physical theatre pushes the small cast to their limits and makes for some occasionally brilliant, comical moments.
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