Jo (Melian Middelkoop, who is also the writer/director) and Izzy (Paulina Cuadra) are flatmates in London navigating romantic disappointment in Take Care, an uneven comedy at Camden Fringe.
It starts strongly, with frank and amusing sex talk, but the momentum is quickly lost as we watch the women’s friendship progress. Izzy is the one flitting around from one date to another; Jo feels more settled even if she is simply making do.
With the shifts in tone evident throughout this piece and the lengthy scene changes, I wonder whether Take Care might benefit from a different director and/or a dramaturg to tease out the play’s strengths.
There are some excellent moments as the play slowly descends into a farcical closure, but at the moment, this 50-minute play doesn’t give the two characters enough space to evolve. Although their conversation feels realistic, their relationship remains ambiguous.
Jo offers the pragmatic and focused veneer of the narcissist, while Izzy is a scatterbrained bundle of nerves. When she isn’t making paper cranes for luck or speculating on whether she would be a successful sugar baby, she feels like a person who will never be truly content.
We don’t know what these two do for work, only seeing them in their domestic setting. The door into the theatre works overtime as an entry and exit point to and from the flat, while pop music tracks paper over the cracks in the narrative and artificially lengthen what is really a 40-ish minute play.
I found Middelkoop’s dialogue for her own character a little bit rushed and inaudible at times, but she has written some excellent moments for Cuadra to explore. Hinge, hook-ups, and houses are all part of the menu on Take Care, but it needs a bit more storyline for us to understand the farcical final scenes and how we got there.
This is a play that will grow and get better as it finds its feet. Whether it wants to explore sexual fluidity, the mechanics of dating, consent within relationships, or friendships that run their course, I think Middelkoop has the skill and the tools to continue to develop this show.
At the moment, I’m giving it 3 stars.
Take Care was at the Etcetera Theatre as part of Camden Fringe to 7 Aug and then at Hen & Chickens Theatre 9-10 Aug.