Starting with a child discovered locked in a trunk in 1919, this one-woman show tells a hard-hitting story of triumph over adversity. The stories she recounts of growing up in an orphanage with cruel overseers are reminiscent of the hideousness in Jane Eyre. When she runs away, she reinvents herself, setting her on the path to a completely different life.
A hard-hitting story of triumph over adversity
Becoming Maverick is not for the faint-hearted, with brief scenes of rape as well as child abuse in the orphanage. If you’ve never seen anything with this subject matter, it might be profound. However, the style is at times quite sensationalist, with melodramatic poses. Rather than letting the material speak for itself, it often becomes overstated. The writing is also a little overblown - much of it rhyming and often too florid, as if trying to be poetry, while the use of second-person address doesn’t quite land.
The denouement is satisfying and interesting, delivering a little “aha!” moment and providing the strongest part of the piece. It serves to inspire the tale. However, there is a coincidence which stretches credibility, some improbable occurrences, and the timing of a key historical context is not mentioned.
Overall, this is interesting, but it needs to be more than that in order to be shocking. It feels as if it still needs some work.
