Emotions, Miniaturised

Imprints

The Palimpsest Project is an international, neurodiverse-led company focused on experimental theatre. Imprints, their first project, is an impressive début. Conceived by founding member Beckett Gray, it tells the story of Charlie (Gray), a neurodiverse art-school dropout who unexpectedly finds herself at a high school reunion party, one that awakens a sadness whose source she can’t quite pin down.

As a rush of conflicting feelings floods in, Charlie tries to assemble the scattered, distant pieces from her memory, especially the events from what might have been a traumatic Christian summer camp outing. Adding to the mystery is someone named Max who Charlie thinks was there, but isn’t sure. Strangely, everyone else at the party is reluctant to tell Charlie who Max was. What’s that all about?

Using live cinema, puppetry, and a series of labeled brown boxes with wonderfully crafted miniatures, the company creates a multimedia landscape that is consistently enthralling. The result is a coming-of-age story the likes of which this reviewer has never before seen, all told as a mystery that keeps its protagonist and the audience guessing. Fellow cast members and script writers Elmira Oberholzer, Leela Villette Gaunt and Sam Critchlow play a variety of supporting characters and add much to the proceedings, as does the terrific music and sound design by Richard Durning. All in all, this auspicious beginning suggests even more exciting work to come.

Furniture Boys

Writer-performer Emily Weitzman also uses miniatures, mentally and emotionally turning her former boyfriends into armchairs, lampshades, sofas, and bookcases in Furniture Boys. Liam is a small fringe lamp with a dim bulb, Leonardo is a drawer that struggles to fully open, and Gregory is a rolling office chair.

Yes, her exes are furniture. Not literally — this isn’t Beauty and the Beast, and Weitzman isn’t a witch casting spells. Still, she enchants her charmed, amused audience, as this wacky show slowly but surely sneaks in emotional truths about affairs of the heart and the lingering attachments that refuse to be swept away. “I can’t get rid of them,” she admits.

Weitzman insists that boys and furniture are much more similar than you think. “Let’s compare a boy and a chair,” Weitzman proposes, before confidently stating that “Every heterosexual woman wants someone who looks like a boy and shuts the fuck up like a chair.”

Furniture lasts, and Weitzman, like all of us, desires something that endures. Fortunately, this poignant, unusual story is as memorable as it is funny, and unlikely to be soon forgotten by those who’ve experienced it.