‘100% My Type on Paper’ from Drop Dead Theatre provides a theatrical and yet still realistic analysis of dating in a world where love has so many different meanings. It is no secret that the increase of social media in our day to day lives has changed society dramatically, and Lola Annesley shows us just how these changes have affected how we view love and relationships. Playing C Alto – Quaker Meeting House from August 12th-25th, this show is right up the street of anyone who has ever experienced modern day dating.
Clyde (Benjamin Oliviera) and Sammy (Evie Meadows) are the victims of the audiences’ expectations of true love. They meet online, then they meet in person, and everything is awkward, and so it should be. Oliviera and Meadows combine art with reality in their first encounter, watching their audience fidget with second hand embarrassment as they relate to the characters. They don’t quite know what to say to each other, they try to play it cool, and fail drastically. The discomfort of the audience is these scenes is a credit to the actors’ ability to portray these scenes so realistically and yet remain so centred within the moment of the performance.
Then, they date again. And it’s not awkward and cute, two people who just want to find love. They are cocky, sexy, and flirtatious in a way that doesn’t feel like a first date – the complete opposite of the previous two characters we had seen. It is jarring, and yet it reflects the kind of relationships we see in the media. And that is the point Annesley makes in her writing – that the version of love we are so used to observing, is not reality.
And the scene restarts again. If the fourth wall is to be broken, this performance absolutely destroys it with creative finesse as we are introduced to The Producer (Joshua Hogan). Hogan’s character is an expert puppeteer as he manipulates the others into a breakdown of his own creation. His character’s purpose is to blend the reality of our lives as audience members, watching a performance on a stage, with the reality of our characters, acting out the fantasy of love as desired by ordinary people. He runs Clyde and Sammy into the ground, forcing them to live out their emotions, emotions he has forced them feel, until they are so far removed from their own consciousness that they cannot feel at all anymore.
The performance becomes more similar to reality television which as The Producer says himself, is nothing at all like real life. The actors perfectly adapt to each version of themselves with seamless transformations, breaking character to reveal how they feel as people, not just as pawns in The Producer’s show. The emotional turmoil portrayed by Oliviera and Meadows is heart-breaking to watch, and even more so as the audience come to relate to their exhaustion of trying to find a version of love that may not even exist anymore. It forces us to think; what does love really mean?
Fantastic acting aside, the design of this show is something to be looked up upon with admiration. Most shows at the Fringe are done on a budget, with simple staging and lighting techniques. However, Drop Dead Theatre used this to their advantage. A thrust stage gave the actors room to move within the audience’s boundaries, providing an intimate atmosphere in which we see the intimate psyche of the characters unfold. A stage made of black curtains and a singular chair, a simple yet effective way of reminding us that this is not real-the concoction of scenes are being artificially designed for our desire. We are reminded that what we see on reality television is made for us to live out our fantasy, to meet our expectations of true love, to build characters that we view as just that, that they are not real people that we know. This performance displays how we distract ourselves from real life with fiction. An irony which has not slipped past my eyes.
Every so often, the thrust stage disables the actors from facing the audience, and whilst it is not a slight on their acting, it should be pointed out that this can affect how the audience perceives the words and actions of a character. Sometimes, lines were lost. Occasionally, a line would be heard but the actors faced a different way, and it would have been more effective to see how the actor was portraying the character at that moment; were they hurt? Sad? Tired? However, the advantage this does have is that from each angle, the audience perception may differ, meaning the show will be slightly different for some than for others.
This play is not a romance, it is a social commentary on romance, and a very well-written and performed one at that. Drop Dead Theatre are performing until the 25th of August (exclusive of the 18th) and I am sure have many great performances to come.
Theatre Scotland 
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