Theatre review: Casserole

Yes, among the many less-than-highbrow reasons for me choosing what shows to see is when a title is as hilariously banal as James Alexandrou, Kate Kelly Flood and Dom Morgan's Casserole, although the one-acter itself proves to have a lot less to laugh about. On the other hand I'm on the record as being wary when writers direct their own work or actors direct themselves, so how would I get along when Alexandrou does both? He plays Dom while Flood plays Kate, a couple both of whom are music video directors - although while his career is over for reasons that are never revealed, hers is at its peak, and as the play begins she's meant to be collecting an award. But instead she's had a panic attack and come home to find Dom drunk, stoned, and surrounded by rubbish. The two are alternately affectionate and bickering - her panic was caused by thinking she'd lost a token of her dead mother's, and this is the subject that ends up dominating the evening.

It turns out that the Tupperware container of casserole Dom has microwaved was the last thing Kate's mother had cooked for her before she died ten months earlier, so she's just lost her last connection to her.

This central argument does take in the fact that Kate feels betrayed by Dom's unthinking action, and ties into her resentment that her boyfriend was with her mother when she died, while she wasn't. But it's ultimately part of a wider argument in which Kate thinks she's been getting signals from her mother all day. While he's spent the last year indulging her belief that there was some deeper meaning to the circumstances of her death, this is a step too far and Dom confronts her in an attempt to get her to accept that - just like he was the one with her mother at the end because he was unemployed and in the house rather than something more significant - some things just don't mean anything.

This is the first full production from Alexandrou’s company Actors East, and was developed by the writers in workshops over the last five years. Casserole certainly bears the hallmarks of a devised piece, for better and worse: There’s some nicely naturalistic dialogue and performances – at least in the case of actors directing themselves Alexandrou doesn’t fall into the usual traps of overindulgence. There are moments when the production really kicks up a notch and draws you in, but on the flipside the conversation can go round in circles way too much. Realistic yes, but not always particularly structured or interesting.

There’s also a few too many gaps in the story, like Dom’s completely unexplained fall from grace (or are we meant to assume his drug and alcohol issues were a problem? IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY?) Also Kate refers to the stone in her pocket as her mum, and I wanted to know if this was just a symbolic talisman, or if they’d gone to one of those companies that says they can turn someone’s ashes into jewellery. Ultimately Paulina Camacho and Paul Weedle’s set, full of luxury covered in rubbish, may tell us more about this superficially well-off but deeply depressed couple than anything else.

Casserole by James Alexandrou, Kate Kelly Flood and Dom Morgan is booking until the 30th of March at Arcola Studio 2.

Running time: 1 hour straight through.

Photo credit: Kit Mackenzie