THEATRE REVIEW: I Get So Emotional Baby
14.10.2022 Basement Theatre, Auckland
There are old blood stains on the plush white carpet. They’ve faded to a delicious strawberry pink. A sheet of plastic is draped along the back wall, illuminated by a single strip of bright lights. Pink and white dance in its crinkled surface. The stage is otherwise empty.
Without warning, the lights flick off, and we’re plunged into darkness. An eerie silence descends over the room like a held breath. One second goes by. Two. Three. We’re all waiting for something. Four. We don’t know what it is. Then: Lights on. A girl is standing on the stage, dressed in a plastic babydoll dress over a pink leotard, arms positioned stiffly in front of her. She reminds me of a FemBot from Austin Powers. A haunting song plays — trapped somewhere between techno beat and horror film soundtrack — and the girl begins to dance.
To give anything more away about I Get So Emotional Baby would be an injustice. Choreographed by Jessie McCall, the experimental interpretative-dance performance has a vague premise: womanhood as abject. Femininity as dangerous. I didn’t know what to expect as I walked into the theatre and eyed the stage; certainly not sacrilegious wafer crackers and claw-clip vaginas. From the very first note, however, I was hooked into an intoxicating hour-long routine that astounded me in its complexity and originality.
“From the very first note, however, I was hooked into an intoxicating hour-long routine that astounded me in its complexity and originality”
The absolute highlight of I Get So Emotional Baby had to be the lighting design. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Changing from pink pastel tones to a stark white spotlight to deep crimson red to ocean greens and blues, the lighting was a character of its own, dynamically transforming the stage into nostalgic spaces. The emotionality of each scene was poetically communicated through the colour of the space, transforming the dancers fears, desires and passions into a tangible pulse. The air was thick with it. This was especially effective when combined with the plastic backdrop and the white carpet, which appeared to morph with the lighting, behaving as reflective canvases for the sinister, throbbing reds and floating, ethereal blues. I was also impressed by the accuracy of the lighting cues, never missing a beat and in total symbiosis with the music. I could go on and on about how fantastic this lighting was. I was seeing it in my sleep for two nights after I watched the performance.
The show capitalised on popular y2k aesthetics, utilising the cute/grunge tendencies to craft a sense of subversive femininity. It was strange and unfamiliar, stirring the same unsettled turmoil I experienced after watching Daniel Goldhaber’s Cam for the first time. The design was beautifully simplistic. The sheet of plastic forming the backdrop was multiplicital in its usage: a mirror, a barrier, a window. The plush carpet was scarred with the choreography of previous performances. I’m unsure whether it was pure white on opening night, but I like the idea of the blood stains embedding themselves again and again and again, layering on top of the spillage from the night before. A bag swung from the ceiling – suspiciously reminding me of a raspberry vodka goon from my high school years – that slowly leaked the bloody substance into a steel rubbish bin positioned to the left of the stage. This created a rhythmic tick of liquid dripping onto metal, which could be detected beneath the music – a persistent, malevolent sound with resemblance to a clock. Small details that are a genius ways to dig deep beneath the skin.
The three performers Sharvon Mortimer, Anu Khapung and Sofia McIntyre were utterly compelling, despite their soundlessness. To emote so distinctively without any script is a commendable feat, and they worked the stage impressively. As the show carried on, their movements became more and more fluid, finding a chaotic grace that was at once beautiful and distressing. A lot of the “story” of I Get So Emotional Baby depended on the cast’s ability to execute emotion through action, and they pulled this off flawlessly. Despite their efforts, however, I found myself confused a lot of the time. The narrative wasn’t particularly cohesive in a way that felt unintentional. I think some of the show’s clarity was lost in its pursuit of aesthetically pleasing visuals — and as aesthetically pleasing they were, I’m unsure whether the sacrifice was worth it. Although the main ideas were stark and the choreography was wonderful, the structure required refinement.
“A distorted hybrid between body horror and bubblegum pop, I Get So Emotional Baby is a fascinating exploration of femaleness in all its bloody glory”
Some of the show’s message was lost in translation, but this doesn’t take away from the brilliance of the concept. The final scene stuck in my mind long after I left the theatre. A distorted hybrid between body horror and bubblegum pop, I Get So Emotional Baby is a fascinating exploration of femaleness in all its bloody glory.
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Book your tickets for I Get So Emotional Baby here!
Choreography: Jessie McCall
Cast: Sofia McIntyre, Sharvon Mortimer, Evie Logan & Anu Khapung
Producer: Zoe Nicholson
Presented By: All You Can Eat Productions
Co Produced with Basement Theatre