Identities, Close to Home’s show that toured to the Burton Taylor Studio this week, explores the experience of breast cancer from the perspective of the breasts themselves, played by Rae Bell and Hannah Harquart. Via their owner, Lucy, they experience all manner of breast-relevant activity, from getting squished into an underwire to bouncing uncomfortably during exercise.
The set is almost a character in itself, an explosion of femininity. There’s pink everything: shag carpeting in different shades, exercise balls, costumes, sheer curtains. It’s an apologetically girly show, from the twee aesthetic to the sisterly love-hate relationship between the two boobs. The show opens with the pair costumed as inflatable breasts, singing to an instrumental of ‘Cell Block Tango’ with the lyrics now about different nicknames for boobs.
Bell (who also wrote the show) plays the more cautious and reserved Right Boob, the straight man to Harquart’s goby and flirtatious Left Boob. A lot of the show’s comedy stems from their wildly different worldviews and constant bickering with one another.
There’s a sprinkling of audience participation in the beginning, with raffle tickets taped under the audience’s chairs. Spinning a lottery ball machine, they call out a ticket and assign that audience member the task of timing the rest of the show with a small pink timer.
This elaborate bit doesn’t add that much, it simply results in them asking sporadically ‘How much time are we on?’ - which took me out of the moment a bit each time it happened. There are a few other moments of audience participation - one involving a strawberry lace eating contest and one involving a tug of war with a rope - but this device doesn’t quite justify itself.
As is probably apparent, the first half of the show is a grab bag of vignettes - going swimming, getting unwanted attention when Lucy goes clubbing, and a romantic encounter where a lump is first discovered in Right Boob.
The props can at times overwhelm the narrative - for the swimming scene, for instance, the characters strip down to the swimwear they were wearing under their outfits, in addition to goggles and a nosepiece. The latter two items in this list would have been enough to convey the scene.
The narrative coalesces in the second half of the piece, once the lump in Right Boob is discovered. Verbatim interviews from survivors of cancer play overhead as the piece moves diligently through all the stages of treatment, from initial consultation to biopsy, to lumpectomy and radiotherapy. However, this journey feels oddly glided over, starting fairly far into the runtime, and treated with a light touch. The breast-as-lead-characters device can also feel a bit inconsistent, as in some scenes it’s implied they can’t see anything unless Lucy has her shirt off, whereas elsewhere this is abandoned, such as when Left Boob quips with an audience member. Lucy feels somewhat gauzy as a character, as the protagonists are clearly meant to be her breasts themselves, but they seem at times broadly characterised. The show wants to cover a wide swathe of women’s experiences, but can at times feel somewhat generic in the process. That said, both Bell and Harquart have consistently delightful delivery and comedic timing, and the silliness is infectious - I think it could have been made more impactful with a narrative to ground it in.
Ultimately, this show is bolstered by its enthused and playful performances and emotional subject matter but could be improved further with tighter, more focused plotting.