Soho Theatre
Playing until 28th March 2025
Photo credit: Morgan Mcdowell
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In Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland’s What If They Ate The Baby? the monotonous and tightly laced-up daily life of the archetypal 1950s housewife is put through the wringer by these two captivating performers.
We first meet Shirley (Roland) as she obsessively scrubs at a spot on her otherwise pristine black-and-white check floor tiles. As a mysterious presence takes hold of her (literally) and we see her flinch at every sound of creaking footsteps above, it’s clear that there’s something much darker lurking beneath her performative glossy sheen.
We soon meet her friendly yet somewhat competitive neighbour Dottie (Rice), and the pair exchange pleasantries from returning borrowed cookware to sharing a spaghetti casserole. Their initial interactions almost conjure the feeling of watching two dolls being puppeteered by a young child, complete with jarringly mundane dialogue, near-maniacal smiles, and rigid, staccato movements. As they go through the motions of this seemingly every day encounter, repeated fragments of conversation and panicked responses to knocks on the door hint that all is not as it seems.
In between the dialogue-driven scenes, we see the pair break out into ragdoll-like movement sequences accompanied by modern music (such as Billie Eilish’s deliciously ominous ‘Bury a Friend’) as they release their pent-up rage and anxiety, which also hints at a queer relationship between the pair that either existed in the past, or currently exists in one or both of their minds.
Rice and Roland are utterly bewitching in these movement sequences, and their choreography and physicality is of the highest quality. Angelo Sagnelli supports the duo with a striking and evocative lighting design that brings out the bubbling unease of the script’s subtext and heightens the dream-like (or, rather nightmarish) atmosphere Rice and Roland craft so effortlessly.
Their off-kilter housewife uniforms — garishly coloured dresses with paint splatters, topped with childlike red circles dotted on their cheeks and noses — and abstractly coloured set design add to the freakish absurdity to tie the piece together with a suitably quirky bow.
There’s a lot of mystique in What If They Ate The Baby? and I’ll admit I found myself wanting the duo to delve a bit deeper into the tantalising whispers of the hidden horrors occurring in their neighbourhood. But there’s no doubt about it: What If They Ate The Baby? is a wickedly entertaining, tightly choreographed 60 minutes of absurdity with two of the Fringe’s finest at the helm.
Creatives
Creators and Performers: Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland
Lighting Designer and Technical Manager: Angelo Sagnelli
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