HEART - REVIEW - BRIXTON HOUSE

Jade Anouka’s debut play, Heart, currently playing at Brixton House, is the autobiographical story of her discovery of her bisexuality in her twenties. Post-divorce and sure of what the perfect relationship should look like, her world is upended by the arrival of a new love, and she has to grapple with her own expectations of her life as well as the expectations of those around her.

The play is one long monologue performed by Anouka, accompanied by composer Grace Savage who provides beats and synth. Savage’s music is a welcome addition to a form which could become monotonous; in particular, the incorporation of breath and heartbeats into the soundscape creates moments of claustrophobic panic. Visually, however, Savage is a distraction up until the end, when her role becomes integral. Prior to this, her lack of integration into the text breaks the intimacy of the monologue form and reminds us that this is not a conversation with the audience, but a rehearsed piece of theatre. In a confessional form, admitting that it is a piece of constructed theatre is the unsayable, because it breaks the trust between the artist and the audience, and this felt like it should have been resolved.

The greater problem with the play, however, is that the text, part-monologue, part-poetry, part-rap, is simply not strong enough to sustain the audience for an hour. In a topic where there is so much to delve, the text felt trite. The metaphor of ‘the beast’ to describe mental illness is hackneyed, the sort of cliche that impedes an audience’s engagement with the depth of the topic. And when Anouka’s mother struggles to process her daughter’s relationship with a woman, Anouka replies with a list of how much she loves her girlfriend with two words for every letter of the alphabet, which results in such jarring proclamations as ‘She is a jailer’, ‘a vacuum that inhales verse’, and ‘she is a female’.

It’s a shame, because far and away the best aspect of this play is Anouka as a performer. Even when the material falters, she has the quality of sincerity in spades, which even in an autobiographical play is not a given. The audience takes to her instantly, and she holds us easily for the full hour. The ability to conjure instant goodwill from an audience is one found seldom, even among great actors; Anouka certainly has this, and despite my misgivings about the production, I found myself willing her on. There is plenty of talent shared between both creatives, but the absence of a director or dramaturge felt obvious here. Heart needs someone else on board to hone it a little more.

{🎟 AD: PR Invite – Tickets gifted in exchange for an honest review}

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