Kitchen Underwear
★★★☆☆ Enjoyable and engaging
Greenside @ Infirmary Street (Venue 236): Mon 14 – Sat 26 Aug 2023
Review by Allan Wilson
Kitchen Underwear by Fringe debutants Hey Thanks! Theatre Collective is an enjoyable and engaging two-hander about flatmates who clearly have significant feelings for each other.
The two young women find it hard to talk to each other about their emotions, instead relying on entries in their personal diaries to reveal their true thoughts.
Maria Goikhberg and Kate Stamoulis in Kitchen Underwear. Pic: Louise Anderbjörk.
Kate Stamoulis and Maria Goikhberg have poured their hearts into a show the have directed, produced, written and performed. Technical support is provided by Hana El-Hilaly and Robert Moran.
The play is set in Edinburgh where Zee, played by Goikhberg, is a translator of poetry who dabbles in writing her own and Ash, played by Stamoulis, is a barista. Zee comes across as a quiet and thoughtful, while Ash is much more open about her emotions and feelings. Their conversations generally take place in the kitchen, beneath a washing line covered with underwear.
Ash has just broken up with a short-term boyfriend and confides in her diary that she is feeling a little destructive and hollow. She has extra feelings of love inside her, but nowhere for them to go.
interesting technique
The use of diary entries is an interesting technique and generally works well. The person making the entry is usually alone on stage and begins by stating the date, but it is not always obvious when the entry ends, which can lead to momentary confusion. The return of the second performer is the general cue, but this can sometimes be delayed.
Maria Goikhberg in Kitchen Underwear. Pic: Louise Anderbjörk.
After the first diary entry, Ash decides to try using Tarot cards for inspiration about a future direction for her life. Zee interrupts and reads the cards for her with the help of the internet. There is a hint that their obvious friendship might lead to something deeper, as Zee wonders about the feelings Ash might have for her in her next diary entry.
The women consider the differences between sex with a man and a woman in future conversations and diary entries, with Zee concluding that dating men is very different to dating women, but dating everybody can be very different.
Just as it seems that Zee is about suggest going on a date with her flatmate, Ash reveals that she is developing a crush on a customer, referred to as Cortado Girl.
The coming months show that life can be very complicated as Ash’s relationships with both Zee and Cortado Girl go up and down. Throughout this time, the comments the women make in their diaries are very different to those they make in real life. There’s a temptation to shout out, ‘For goodness sake, talk to each other the way you write in your diaries!’
Kitchen Underwear is an enjoyable and engaging tale of a search for queer love, frustrated by the difficulties two characters have in talking openly and honestly about feelings and emotions with each other.
Running time: 50 minutes (no interval)
Greenside @ Infirmary Street – Sprout Studio, 6 Infirmary Street, EH1 1LT (Venue 236)
Monday 14 – Saturday 26 August 2023
Daily (not Sun 20): 2.55pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Hey Thanks Theatre Collective links
Twitter: @heythanks_co
Facebook: @Hey Thanks Theatre Collective
Instagram: @heythankstheatreco.
Kate Stamoulis in Kitchen Underwear. Pic: Louise Anderbjörk.
ENDS
#MadeInEdinburgh
