The Rabbit Hole Ensemble has devised a piece of theatre about therapy, identity and relationships that now arrives at The Cockpit as part of the Voila! Theatre Festival. naked is written and performed by Maggie Zhang and James Walsh, and directed by Haiqing Liang.
When we enter the auditorium, the actors are already in situ. She repeats a line about “a small and beautiful thing”; he is on the floor talking about “putting one foot in front of the other”. It feels intriguing, experimental, and already we want to know more about these two.
The framing conceit is that they are in couples therapy, but this is not completely clear if you haven’t read the show blurb (or previewed the show as I did for the Camden Fringe). Still, we can engage with a variety of memories and explorations of a relationship that is heading, uneasily, for marriage.
There are a lot of ideas within an hour runtime – from the mechanics of an awkward date (he dresses up, she dresses down) to exploring kinky sex with variable results. There are childhood recollections of an unfaithful dad and the trauma of body dysmorphia.
One aspect I found particularly effective was the use of pillows for assembling most of the set (designed, with the costumes, by Yijing Chen). They can be used to build a bridge, to offer a moment of solace, to represent a thing or a place, to reference an argument. One amusing moment has the woman’s Chinese family lightly interrogating their “British VIP” visitor on matters of height, wealth, and marriage plans.
Physical movement, too, is important to naked, with a credited choreographer (Caterina Danzico) and movement director (Nicoletta Bonanni) ensuring that the characters communicate as much in their gestures and visual interactions as in words. There is a delicacy in loving someone, and also a danger in exploring limits and learning your partner’s body language.
Zhang and Walsh have worked with Chronic Insanity as their dramaturg for this show, and if you know their work you might recognise that input, in getting a story that is sometimes difficult across to an audience. The structure is based on a sequence of scenes between the couple, as well as a couple that demonstrates moments they carry with them from much earlier.
It quickly establishes why these two people are drawn to each other, and if a moment or two seems a little out of place – the mock children’s show comes to mind – it does feel as if we are drawing back the net curtain to eavesdrop and peek into what happens in private.
Intimacy and identity are core to the development of naked, which unfolds in Chinese and Mandarin as well as English, mainly to highlight the man’s status as an outsider in his girlfriend’s world. It asks what language means within a couple’s world, and offers some examples of that close communication with humour, intelligence, and truth.
With no clear resolution for these two, naked ends with some positivity but also some uncertainty; exactly as a couple would navigate their future life together.
I’m giving this 3.5 stars. It is definitely a show to keep an eye on, and I am still thinking about some of its themes.
naked was at The Cockpit on the 5 Nov as part of the Voila! Theatre Festival.
For more on Rabbit Hole Ensemble, follow their Instagram.
Photo credit: Alyssa Tian’ai Zhou and Carey Chen