Theatre review: Monsoon Season, Underbelly - Cowgate, Edinburgh

This jet black "romantic comedy" is so well played and so sharply written for most of it's running time, the fact that it somewhat fumbles it's ending shouldn't really put you off.

Monsoon Season is funny and cynical in equal measure

Monsoon Season, Underbelly - Cowgate, Edinburgh * * *

You'd miss out on on two terrifically funny performances. It's monsoon season in Arizona and Danny (Richard Theriot) has separated from Julia (Therese Plahn). He lives a life of quiet desperation and sleep deprivation with deceptive cheerfulness next to a strip club while her Adderal addiction is affecting her erratic beauty vlog (”Pretty As F***”).

These are the most unreliable narrators imaginable and Lizzie Vieh's barbed wire sharp script gives them both equal weight with short, punchy scenes, one-sided conversations more akin to rapid-fire cinema edits than theatrical convention. It works so well because both actors tear into their roles; Thierot negotiates every situation with the gentle sunniness with which he coaxes the couple's young son through the separation while Plaehn plays Jula as an overripe Sharon Stone type coming apart at the seams.

Until 25 August

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