Babe Alien
★★★☆☆ Weirdly fascinating
theSpace @ Surgeon’s Hall (Venue 53): Mon 19 – Sat 24 Aug 2024
Review by Allan Wilson.
Mon Espoir’s Babe Alien is a weirdly fascinating story in which an innocent outsider living in Las Vegas, but apparently from another world, takes a critical look at American culture and behaviour.
Writer / producer / actor, Lukca Best portrays Babe with a quiet, caring naivety, which can rise to intense passion when they see injustice, particularly with regard to the environment. They wear silver trousers, a transparent plastic cloak and a black, cropped vest, with small horns seeming to grow from their shoulders.
The cast of Babe Alien. Pic: Mon Espoir.
As part of their exploration, Babe visits a casino with their card-shark flatmate, Moldavite, played by Luke Steele as a would-be, small-scale mafioso. Babe is baffled by the concept of money, to which Moldavite replies, “money talks”, but this is a language that Babe does not understand. They meet a glamorous Miss Las Vegas, played by Nikita Doncheva, who admits that she isn’t the real Miss Las Vegas. Babe then admits that they aren’t really an alien.
Babe is horrified to find a whale in captivity in the casino, as a customer attraction, and tries to communicate with it. They become determined to help the whale find its way back to the ocean.
Babe, hating the casino and all it stands for, returns with Moldavite to his apartment, where they are joined by their remaining flatmates, Fraud and Robbie, played by Ben Waddell and Lee McIntyre. They both have strong, Scottish accents (and why not?) and spend their time slumped on a sofa watching David Attenborough programmes, while they discuss selling old furniture and other junk they retrieve from storm drains.
The quest to communicate with the whale takes Babe to The Oasis, a New Age Community, led by Erica Burnett’s sympathetic Hope, who advises Babe to try to communicate with the whale through yoga.
Babe returns to Las Vegas and manages to establish communication with the whale, given a slow, halting voice, with strong hints of Attenborough by Taylor Murphy. The whale has had a sad, restricted life, but is happy to be able to talk with Babe – and they are still singing.
a rousing demonstration
Determined to stop humans messing up the world, Babe realises that progress can only be made by taking one step at a time, beginning with a rousing demonstration, accompanied by his friends.
This is clearly a low-budget production in a limited space, but Director, Eilidh MacDonald, and the creative team of Paul Luengbejarong (Lights and Sound) and Sara Best (Designer) all do sterling work. MacDonald has added some nice little touches, such as a brief dance involving Babe and Moldavite covering a set change, while Luengbejarong’s atmospheric soundscapes are particularly effective for the scenes with the whale. Rather than create complex sets, Best makes good use of illustrations mounted on a stand near the back of the stage to provide a flavour of the setting for individual scenes.
Overall, Babe Alien is a passionate plea for humanity to care more for the environment and for each other.
Running time: 50 minutes (no interval)
theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Haldane Theatre), Nicolson Street, EH8 9DW (Venue 53)
Monday 19 – Saturday 24 August 2024
Daily: 5.20 pm
Details and tickets at: Book here
Instagram: @mon_espoir_theatre
ENDS
