Imagine a Margaret Atwood novel adapted by Vic Reeves…
As the old saying goes, you’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette. Unless, of course, you’re Natalie Palamides, in which case you decide to smash as many of the damn things as you can in order to make one of the strangest productions of this year’s Fringe.
At the start of her enthralling one-woman show, she hatches from a giant foam egg, rubs her bristly legs before shaving… her face, then settles down to read the paper. Don’t worry, it gets weirder. She then proceeds to “lay” a real egg, which prompts her to ask: “Do I raise my egg or eat it?” You can probably guess the answer to that. Sure enough, Palamides is soon tucking into a hearty breakfast.
She then goes back to bed, wakes up, and repeats the same routine again and again… and again, only with different outcomes each time, as Palamides’s unnamed character begins to embrace her maternal instincts.
That might sound like indulgent nonsense but LAID is, in fact, a surreal, nightmarish vision of motherhood, which haunts you long after the lights have come up. Imagine a Margaret Atwood novel adapted by Vic Reeves.
It is surprisingly poignant stuff. As egg after egg (for which, read child after child) is obliterated, you begin to pray that one – just one – might survive. Who knew you could get so attached to an egg with a face scribbled on with marker pen? Yolks go flying – be warned: this is an extraordinarily mucky show – as the mental state of Palamides’s character disintegrates. LAID intelligently confronts the societal pressures placed on women to have children, and then to be the perfect parent when they arrive.
We are shocked when this mother eats her offspring but equally appalled when she smothers them with love until they crack under the weight. So, yes, there is a serious message here but actually my advice would be not to dwell too long on what all of it means. Directed by Dr Brown, former Edinburgh Comedy Award winner, it is physical theatre at its most absurd and visceral. It deserves to be judged as such. Forget meaning; perhaps sometimes it’s just fine to laugh at a woman covered in egg yolk attempting to play the trumpet. And what a joy it is to watch La-based Palamides – a voice-over artist for the US children’s TV channel Cartoon Network – commit with such guttural enthusiasm to the role. Even when she is being funny (and there are plenty of actual jokes here), Palamides has an urgency about her that draws you into her madcap nest.
Her performance turns your stomach, scrambles your brains and leaves you squawking with laughter.