SLAP To 10 October.
London..
SLAP
by Alexis Gregory.
Theatre Royal Stratford East Gerry Raffles Square E15 1BN To 10 October 2015.
Fri-Sat 7pm & 9pm.
Runs 1hr 15min No interval.
TICKETS: 020 8534 0310.
www.stratfordeast.com
Review: William Russell 8 October.
D is for drag, deception, debauchery, and death.
D is also for Dominique and Danny. Dominique is a hooker – measurements “34/24/34…and eight” she tells a phone caller – who is trapped in her flat with her boyfriend, Danny, who is locked in the bathroom out of his mind on crystal meth.
Her regular john, called John, is waiting for her to join him for dinner and, having been stood-up, comes to find what has stopped Dominique from turning up.
The result, directed by Rikki Beadle-Blair, is an exhausting, frequently very funny but ultimately anything but funny account of a day in the life and death of a transsexual sex worker. As Dominique, Alexis Gregory stalks the stage in an amazingly revealing black corset and killer heels delivering a terrific performance of a damaged being at the end of his/her tether. While Frankie Fitzgerald, lurking in the bathroom refusing to come out, makes the hunky Danny ultimately a rather touching and injured soul, not the street-trash trouble he at first seems.
Nigel Fairs plays John the john, the client with special tastes who now wants to extend his relationship with Dominique beyond the professional.
The play is funny and enlightening and, given the material, the ghost of Joe Orton hovers ever so faintly over it all, but, that said, Gregory, whose first play this is, proves his own man.
Slap is certainly not what one anticipates, let alone what its own tag line – “Life’s a bitch, why not become one?” – would have one believe. As the onion skin layers peel off and Dominique’s evening gets ever more fraught the play takes flight, revealing a world one is happy not to be part of.
Danny: Frankie Fitzgerald.
John: Nigel Fairs.
Dominique: Alexis Gregory.
Director/Designer: Rikki Beadle-Blair.
Make up: Benjamin Ip.
2015-10-09 11:40:18