Dark Vanilla Jungle by Phillip Ridley

10 August, 2016

It was a very hot day - dazzling sunshine! - and Mum - she was wiping sweat from her neck. No, not wiping. Dabbing . . . Dab . . . Dab. Mum was a beauty. Not like me. And don't tell me I am because you'll be lying and I won't thank you for it. Not today. Not when this whole thing - us, here - is about me telling the truth.

How do you explore extremes of feeling on stage? In cult pen-master Philip Ridley’s new play, a 75-minute monologue, he takes us by the hand and throws us into a universe of pain.

Andrea and her friend Emma are a couple of teenagers whose upbringing has not encouraged them to bask in the warming sunlight of good self-esteem. On the contrary, both come from a cold place of damage caused by parental indifference. So when they meet a pair of men who, in their eyes, look gorgeous, they are bowled over. Welcome to a world of cocktails and clubbing, of fun nights out in glamorous venues. It’s great, but you just know that it can’t last. And it doesn’t. Soon Andrea finds herself drawn into a pimp’s world of stoned sex and blatant lies. Abandoned by her father, mother, and finally left with her granny, Andrea is so needy that she falls for all the oldest tricks in the seducer’s book. But an unwanted pregnancy, threats of extreme violence, and a chance encounter at a hospital send her tumbling over the edge.

This is a monologue that dramatises mental collapse. The story roars along like a mad monkey on speed, with exaggerated gestures and amazing incidents all along the way. But although the narrative is outwardly gobsmacking, with every incident heightened, the emotions remain recognisably clear — they are excruciatingly real. Under its cloak of glittering imagination, where a piece of glass might be mistaken for a diamond or a dribble of spunk for a sliver of silver, there’s a real throb of despair and desperation. With an ending so extreme that it rewrites the boundaries of the acceptable, this is a compelling piece of drama. Under an intense glare of raw emotion, the world starts to splinter into a burst of runaway psychosis. But intense suffering is repellent as well as fascinating.

We start the evening with a child’s memory and end up in a scary, really frightening place. Rarely are feelings so frayed. Or flayed.

REVIEWS

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Indyweek
“The most compelling local production I’ve seen in quite some time. Drop everything; this you’ve got to see.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐
London City Nights
“Dark Vanilla Jungle is not an easy piece to perform. Andrea is all over the emotional spectrum and constantly toys with audience sympathies. That said, Lexie Braverman knocks it out of the goddamn park from minute one. … Burning Coal's Dark Vanilla Jungle knocked my socks off. It's an ambitious, beautifully performed and smartly directed gem of a production.”