an unsettling, eccentrically funny work, enriched by edgy performances
The Horror Face | Review
IT’S worth popping down to MKA’s new pop-up theatre on Chapel Street, if only to bask in the camaraderie and creative energy of the place.
As a ”Theatre of New Writing”, it does risk turning from pop-up to jack-in-the-box. The Horror Face is its second slight comedy in a row, and I hanker to see the company stage something more ambitious.
Glyn Roberts has created a weird sci-fi. Entertaining and discombobulating, it builds a distinctive cyberpunk vibe in brief, tangentially connected scenes. It’s like watching out-takes from your favourite dystopia, and contains loose suggestions about how genetic and technological advances change what it means to be human. One strand sees motivational speakers presented as cheerful androids, and Soren Jensen seizes the opportunity for excruciatingly effective stand-up comedy.
Director Felix Ching Ching Ho has generated a swift, unstable blend of robotic comedy and ghoulish horror. Intrusions of drama could be more distilled, as a counterpoint to the barrelling whimsy, though this is the writing more than the direction.
It’s an unsettling, eccentrically funny work, enriched by edgy performances.