The latest show from Cellar Door Theatre, Tape, is about a reunion of three classmates ten years after high school. They have gone on very different paths in their own definition of success, but the past needs addressing, and one incident in particular.
Vince (Paul Kelvin) is still very much a frat boy, living in a cheap hotel room (bed, sink, chair) and holding on to the stash of drugs and warm beer that gives his life meaning. Jon (Nick Chinn)is a filmmaker on the cusp of success, living it up at the expense of others and revelling in being one of the good guys. And Amy (Brittany Rex) has moved on to bigger and better things.
A play about morality, memory, and mistreatment, Tape (written by American playwright Stephen Belber and first performed in 1999), is set in real-time with no scene shifts or time changes. It feels claustrophobic, tense, and cruel. But who is really showing the upper hand keeps shifting, with director Jaimee Doyle forcing our empathy with characters to change as the drama progresses.
Tape is a play that relies heavily on dialogue while allowing for physical interaction between Vince and Jon. As Vince tries to make sense of the fact that his former girlfriend, Amy, kept him at arm’s length during their dating, yet got together with Jon shortly after, he jumps to what he feels is an inevitable conclusion.
No one comes out well from this story. Vince is a drug dealer and a failure who wants to pin that on the two people who have made a success in their lives. Jon defends his high school choices as harmless, while Amy is perhaps the most vicious in her plan to play and humiliate her former friends.
This is a very honest play, with frank discussion of a sexual encounter that means something different to each of the three people in the room. The title refers to a physical tape that Vince has hidden, but could also refer obliquely to a form of restraint in either rough sex or open consensual chat. Matters of consent ripple through this darkly comic drama.
This version, performed at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre for the Camden Fringe, continues Cellar Door Theatre’s engagement with challenging texts and interesting writers. Tape crackles with tension throughout, with plot twists and strong performances encouraging us to make up our own minds about what happened at that party ten years earlier.
4.5 stars.
Tape was part of Camden Fringe from 11-15 Aug, produced by Cellar Door Theatre.