The Side Hustle is a scratch night event hosted by Proforça Theatre Company at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre.
It provides “a platform for new and developing work, offering artists and performers a space to showcase their creations.”
Performed in June, and made available to me in digital format, Prinz is a quirky, funny and unusual piece about a young couple, Asia (Thea Melton) and Cas (Rory McNamara).
A “sharp, tender, and wickedly imaginative domestic dramedy”, Prinz takes place as they fold laundry and chat. It’s a domestic scene you might see every day.
At first it seems that the young man may have been recovering from an accident, but think of the title, and slowly it becomes clear that fairytale endings have become uncomfortable life.
It’s a new slant on relationship difficulties and trauma, or what happens when the spell is broken. What happens when your partner isn’t just someone different to the one you met, but different in every possible way?
Cas, who has become a human after meeting Asia, has to navigate not just the physical awkwardness of his limbs, but becoming the butt of jokes in the office.
Katherine Lyle is the writer and has written some cracking lines and visual metaphors, Saniya Sarif, the director, opts to stage Prinz in one place but allows a telling moment of movement at the end.
What happens next, we ask, as Prinz counts down through its ten-minute runtime? Was Asia right to tempt fate, and can Cas ever be the boyfriend she really needs?
This is also beautifully filmed although, had it been for public consumption, no doubt some closer capture would have happened.
I wait to see more from everyone involved.
4 stars.
Prinz was filmed at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre. Thanks to Saniya Sarif for sharing the video.