This is a play which tried to do too much.
Luna, the protagonist, is loud and in-your-face. This can be funny, and there were points when her tongue-in-cheek comments drew chuckles from the audience. However, for the most part it made her difficult to care about and very inaccessible. Gauge, in her creation and portrayal of Luna, misjudged her audience and the varied trials of young adulthood she was trying to depict.
Attempts at being cross-genre also fell short. The script is written like a slam poem, and is supposed to imitate the feeling of being in a club on a night out. However, it lacks the visceral, moving elements which would make the use of spoken word worthwhile. Alongside Luna, there are two musical performers; Georgia Bliss sings and Haydn-Sky Bauzon beatboxes. The use of beatboxing is this show’s saving grace, being both innovative and the most original thing about this otherwise dull piece of original writing. These performers added energy and flair to certain scenes, notably contributing relatable excitement to a millennial’s first step on the property ladder.
There was a good use of movement in this play, particularly at the start as the performers danced in slow motion to pop music. Unfortunately, the song choices were as uninspiring as the rhyme scheme, adding very little to the story. Some of the physical material could have been more polished, a point which could be taken on by director Niall Phillips, who perhaps attempted to shoehorn too many diverse techniques in his realisation of the text.
This is a play which tried to do too much. Though some aspects of it were enjoyable, its many different components don’t come together to form a compelling whole. The Unmarried, though obviously a performance into which a lot of thought has gone, would have benefitted from some further fine-tuning.
