‘Sick Dog’ and ‘I Can’t Stop the Loneliness’ double bill review
‘a tour-de-force by all involved’; ‘a whole lot of technical skill and a lot of brilliant and beautiful things to say’
Sick Dog is an immaculate showcase of pitch-perfect talent that gently explores the nuances of a relationship between an AI companion and a young woman. The narrative never falls back on the archetypes invoked by this set-up, but instead teases out tender moments that ache with humanity.
I was continually staggered by the restraint, discipline and precision through which Pearl D’Souza crafted the physicality of AI companion Eliza. The depth of her accomplishment is hard to put into words, but D’Souza plays a robot designed to convey emotion pitch perfectly, pushing her eyebrows up slightly too far and squinting her pupils at slightly the wrong rhythm, to the point that an audience member feels both the natural sympathetic response one would to those facial expressions, and a deep sense of the uncanny at the same time. An absolute standout moment towards the climax is when D’Souza dilates her eyes and moves them horizontally to convey a machine struggling to process, evoking a genuine sense of distress that is not human but still feels like a very real and valid form of pain. In her work, D’Souza seems to craft new categories of emotion: it is staggering.
Cara Crofts as the human Winnie, living under Eliza’s care, dances between charming flippancy and soulful reflection with ease. Maariya Khalid’s writing grounds the play in a dynamic that foregrounds Winnie’s entitlement and disregard for Eliza’s care, a beautiful choice that underpins the moral danger of interacting with an entity that you feel you have no moral duty towards. In these moments, Crofts plays Winnie with a charming knowingness that renders an uncomfortable dynamic profoundly watchable. But as we break into conversations about love and men, Crofts effortlessly softens, tenderly guiding us into Winnie’s world. In her later monologues, Crofts utterly shines: you can feel she is a performer who is playfully feeling out all of the human edges of Khalid’s words as she says them, patiently deploying the depth of her vocal tone and subtly expressive facial expressions with utter craftmanship.
For two actresses to be so clearly in command of all their craft, suggests a director who has cultivated a very special rehearsal room – Billie Switonski deserves a world of praise. She brilliantly crafts the dynamic between Eliza and Winnie, repeatedly blocking Eliza in a seated position that shifts from feeling awkwardly alien to almost humanly constrained as Winnie is free to roam the space. Especially beautiful are the moments of awkwardness, as the lighting constrains, D’Souza jutters mechanically, and Crofts pulls herself back enough to evoke the discomfort of a half-real intimacy she cannot possibly accept. Here we see the incredible work of tech-all-star (PM/SM/lighting designer) Gemma Parker, as she subtly shifts colour palettes of lighting, creating atmosphere without ever distracting from the characters, another beautifully crafted element.
All of this is built upon the foundation of Khalid’s script, which is a pitch-perfect exploration of a well-trodden topic, resisting the urge to take a perspective and instead teasing tender, strange and deeply human moments out of the beautifully crafted central relationship. Structured perfectly, Khalid creates a trajectory that feels engaging without ever needing to manufacture a central conflict that would diminish the ambivalent honesty of the whole piece. Khalid drew on ChatGPT responses to inform Eliza’s dialogue and brilliantly reflects the strangeness of GPT’s language – in an instance for example, when Winnie is almost charmed by a compliment (“nicest looking”) that doesn’t quite fit with social conventions of language, but somehow feels all the more sincere for not actually drawing on any specific social notion of beauty. The hypocrisy of Winnie dismissing all of Eliza’s feelings as fake, then a second later using Eliza’s claim she is "tired" to get her to go away, is another brilliantly human moment that showcases the weird contours of human-AI relations. Even Khalid’s humour is brilliantly curated, with cultural references that feel like an in-joke for the whole audience. Sick Dog is a tour-de-force by all involved.
I Can’t Stop the Loneliness boasts a beautifully written script by Horatio Holloway, packed full of clever humour and anecdotes that touch on all too humourous details of relationships, love and loss. Capturing the lives of two consultants – one young, English, and lost within himself; the other older, Japanese, and lost within his life – as they bond over karaoke and alcohol in the most absurd of circumstances, Holloway’s writing dances between cleverness and sensitivity with ease.
The two leads – Tristan Betts as Henry, and Lucy Huang as Isao – start off with a skilful repartee that reflects the deep competence of both performers. Betts’ line delivery reflects immense technical skill; every word arrives spontaneously and is delivered with variations in volume and pitch that keep the punchlines alive and the monologues dynamic. Huang delivers lines with a beautiful sense of restrained emotion, capturing the wistful nature of an old man lost within himself. As a conversation, there is a texture and life between the two characters for which directors Emi Sharples and Iris Varla should be praised greatly.
Where the central duologue perhaps falters is developing the intrigue of this dynamic. The pair never really translate their skilful volley of compelling line deliveries into emotional beats that can chart the growth of their relationship across the play, meaning much of Holloway’s beautiful language is stripped of its emotional poignancy. It also did not help that the actors did not always feel firmly rooted in the flow of their scenes.
Still, there is much to praise, and by the end, Haung captures the sense of feeling trapped in a failing marriage with immense empathy and heart, whilst Bett firmly reclaims his ground as Henry persuades Isao to take a more active approach to his life. It is in these scenes that Bett’s immense stage presence and natural leading-man-charisma shine, mustering up a deep sense of passion that translates into an inspiring rallying call.
The real standout of the play, however, is the brilliant Mulambo Mwambu Haimbe as the utterly effervescent and charming Cop 1. Delivering punchlines with playfulness and joy, the stage lit up every time he stepped on it, accompanied by the brilliantly bright eyed and hilarious Allister Cummings as Cop 2. Andrew Mullins compliments the comedy with his ingeniously charmless Boss.
Overall, this is a play filled with a whole lot of technical skill and a lot of brilliant and beautiful things to say. This is only complimented by the brilliant lighting by Gemma Parker and sound by Andrew Mullins that capture the dingy spectacle of a Japanese karaoke bar superbly.
By Laurence Davidson.
The student writing double bill is showing on Wednesday 5th March at The City Theatre, at 19:30.