When Ash and Zee move into their tiny Edinburgh apartment, they begin to navigate the emotional rollercoaster that is their early twenties. What they don’t expect is confronting the ageold question of, “do I want to date you, or do I just want to be you?” “Kitchen Underwear” details the highs and lows of sapphic friendships and how we show love to one another. ‘
‘Kitchen Underwear’ is a wonderful example of the difficulties but all round cuteness of queer love. Finding your identity is hard, it is a rough road that a lot of queer people must face however in most cases it is a beautiful exploration of the self.
The story itself is fantastic, and definitely has some major legs as far a production is concerned, the language is poetic but still very much based in realism. The story was mainly driven through time via diary entries from Ash and Zee, which was a fantastic mode of displaying the progression of feelings under time constraints. With that being said the pacing wasn’t entirely perfect, some aspects did feel a tad rushed but due to this being a Fringe show time is often not a luxury that artists have. My recommendation to the writing team would be to maybe have some subtleties within the dialogue from the beginning, perhaps less about them learning to love one another and more progress on the feelings already there. Monologues were used fabulously, but they don’t need to necessarily do the heaving lifting- the audience is often smarter than we believe and can make up the nuances they just need slight direction.
Going on to the performance itself, the acting was brilliant from both actors and I really felt myself routing for them the full time I was there so much so that the ending angered me because I just wanted them to be happy and ride of into the sunset together. Happy Endings don’t always happen in the real world so I respect their decision to choose that ending but I was saddened either way. Maria Goikhberg gave a great performance as Zee, it was subtle performance but truly impactful, specifically her spiral of anxiety it wasn’t too over the top as these moments often can be in theatre so probs to her. Kate Stamoulis was excellent as the riot that was Ash, her pretty monologues and funny quips often grabbed my attention- a very funny rendition of the character- I felt very empathetic of her performance and the a character. My one note to her as an actor would be to keep eye contact with your scene partner at all times- while talking to them- actor sightlines are important and now in and again it would bring me back to reality- which I don’t want…
All in all this play was great, cute queerness wrapped up in even cuter poetic language. I truly recommend this show to anyone, a lovely addition to this years festival.
Theatre Scotland 
Leave a comment