Laura Levites: SELFHELPLESS
gilded balloon teviot (venue 14)
She looks like a cross between a young Ruby Wax and a young Judy Garland, rocking reams of unruly pre-Raphaelite tresses and a serious caffeine high. She is an extraordinary stage presence, even in front of ten people at her “completely reworked this morning … so … hey !” show.
Laura has been, she tells us, a very unhappy person. An hour later we realise that this was an understatement, right up there with “things have been a little unsettled in egypt lately”.
Laura has sat on vortices, consulted shamans and tried voodoo in an attempt to achieve some form of the happiness that has eluded her all her life. even Google ultimately failed her – although she did turn up some surprising facts on the world’s first self-help book.
She found some solace on eBay, of course, but she has a habit of falling in love and forming relationships with handbags before the bidding ends, which can be traumatic. Most female heads were nodding through her “do you suffer from oneomania?” test. Although, of all the many things that have ailed this tiny woman – whose body seems barely to be able to contain its fizzing mix of energy and charisma – her uncontrollable desire to buy things is the one she doesn’t want cured.
A show which starts loosely gradually coalesces into the aptly horrific/hilarious tale of how Laura Levites, having planned and failed to commit suicide – her life saved by her own sartorial indecision -– finally got diagnosed as being bipolar with ADD. The point in the show where she gets the diagnosis and her reaction to it is the most sweetly poignant moment you may ever experience.
her stories – and her fantasies – about her doctors (both hot and not), her months in bed on eBay, her adventures with pot, the time her medication made her lactate and some passing observations on The english (Laura is from New York) make for an hour of odd, intense, funny, painful, personal comedy in the company of an extraordinary woman.
kate copstick
Until 26 August. Today 2:45pm