MOMME DOMME
You’re invited to an exclusive preview of a new curated exhibition, “How To Be A Domme 101” hosted by performance artist, aspiring institutional darling, Peggy Mitchell.
Each night, we’ll invite 4 women expecting a mistressclass. Weaving sonic intervention, ritual and voyuerism, prepare for an embodied surrenderment into the matriarchy.
I wanted to like this one, and it had some good concepts. Also, the cast was committed and often brave in their performance at key moments. Unfortunately, I struggled a fair bit from an accessibility perspective - the fact that much of the cast was still reading scripts made it pretty hard to hear lines, read lips or tell what characters were responding to from context.
I liked the concept of audience voting, but feel there was a significant trade off when assigning parts meant that actors were relying on scripts, instead of learning a role enough to fully act & react on stage. Especially in a piece relying on a level of audience immersion & participation, I found this a fairly meaningful barrier to following along enough to feel the choices and plot developments were impactful. Some of the layered audio (especially the water) also made it significantly harder to follow, and while the more "performance art" scenes were easier to understand, the overall plot and characterization for 4 out of 6 parts got lost for me.
An interesting and thought provoking experience, but I think certain parts of the conceit got in the way of the message. While choosing which character was on the chopping block for humiliation did make me reflect momentarily on the ways I, too, was complicit in the patriarchy and the harm of women, choosing who was playing each character made the voice overs jarring and less connected to what was happening on stage. I had no idea the first one was meant to be a character on stage until after the next one was introduced.
Overall, the concept is fantastic and the creepy voyeuristic feeling never left me, but I think the play feels unfinished on the whole.
The concept of a choose your own adventure exploration of feminist power in the form of an unhinged domme 101 session sounds like the basis for a great Fringe show. Unfortunately, with most of the actors reading off a script still in-hand, most of the dialogue was lost and the timing stilted. I saw the opening show, to be fair, but it felt more like the first rehearsal. Maybe they'll be ready in time for the Edinburgh Fringe, but if we were their experimental audience it felt a little insulting.