The Honeymoon Period Is Officially Over
Artpoint Gallery
August 4 2010
There’s been a lot of buzz about this show not least because it was just named “Best of Fest” for this year’s Fringe. As such an extra show has been added to the schedule.
To be frank this show was not at all what I had expected. I thought it would be heavy on the comedy but it’s not. It’s actually a fairly serious piece dealing with relationships. There’s the young couple who are not yet married whose relationship is already on the rocks. There’s the mature couple who’ve managed to maintain “the spark” to keep their relationship alive who impart their wisdom to the young couple. And there’s a brief look through the lens of a guy named Pete about a destructive relationship involving drugs.
The show is thoughtful and long-time Fringe artist Gemma Wilcox is an excellent performer. The piece is polished and Wilcox executes it smoothly shifting seamlessly between characters. Wilcox herself from London endows her characters with a range of British dialects.
She employs a lot of mime work in the piece from chopping wood to painting to lying in bed. Generally I’m not a fan of actors miming stuff like that but she offers up some of the best most believable mime I’ve seen in a long time. She also throws in some quirky but fun portrayals of the arrogant house cat Hawthorne a gerbil named Lela a mother hen and a peacock. Again I’m not a big fan of actors playing animals but Wilcox manages to win me over.
Unlike a lot of shows where crises are very dramatic or there are deep dark secrets buried in the plot somewhere The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over has none of that. It’s very “realistic” about the issues that strain relationships issues like boredom insensitivity and work-alcoholism. I actually kept anticipating some big dramatic revelation but it never happened. In fact that’s really my only complaint with the show – it seemed to go out on a whimper not a bang. However that whimper is far more representative of real life; really loud “bangs” are usually only the exclusive preserve of the stage.
The show is well-done and charming but those in search of a really dramatic or funny story you’ll need to look elsewhere….
