Unsend, which is written by Rachel Kitts and performed by Kitts and Sarah McCurrach, is the first of three short plays that make up Mewling and Puking, a new writing showcase by the Happy Cannibals Theatre Company. With a runtime of just under fifteen minutes, Unseen serves as a taster for a larger piece. However due to this restraint, the piece does feel unfinished and a little uneven at times.
Unsend is a conversation between two friends, Grace (Kitts) and Brooke (McCurrach), the morning after a wild night out. The two friends, although initially appearing to be affectionate and amiable to one another, slowly allow their secrets and a certain past threesome, to dredge up a past that leads to a confrontation with the present. Presented as a push and pull, Grace and Brooke discuss and debate Grace's sexuality, and Brooke's ex-boyfriend Max, threatening the calm waters of their world at present.
The conversation is fast paced and is kept engaging with new information being revealed nearly every other minute, in the horrifying way the memories of a drunken night out often do, which helps the piece feel quite natural. Kitts' writing is sharp and cutting, never sugarcoating the hard hitting facts and unafraid to call out the bullshit. Tackling the complexities of what it means to "label" oneself, and how sexual orientation is an infinite concept in of itself, Kitts conveys a rather intelligent topic to discuss.
However, the conversation escalates to confrontation with little warning or build up, most likely due to the short time frame, yet this leaves audiences scrambling to keep up with the characters. This forces the careful exploration of sexuality to be cut short, as the play tries to quickly place this initial conversation over the characters, unintentionally dousing the play's energy.
This is not to say the play doesn't make sense, for it does, especially with the threesome and Max's relationship with Brooke helping fill in the spaces. The play presents several interesting ideas that simply need time and space to develop further, and creates a wonderfully complex relationship between Grace, Brooke and Max.
Kitt and McCurrach do well to convey the sense of disorientation, fear and panic and defensiveness, in the short play. Kitts, in particular, manages to wrench an impressively layered performance for Brooke, who is on the brink of being forced to confront a truth that she fears and being "outed".
Unsend has a solid foundation and strong premise that, at present, feels like a seedling of a potentially powerful full length queer play.
★★★☆☆ (3*)
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