THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Soho Theatre, 21 Dean Street, London W1D 3NE, August 26 to 31, 2024
Alison Larkin’s journey is a fascinating one, particularly for expats, especially for long term expats like me who’ve never quite stopped searching for who they are. Which is already funny – although, sadly I stress, philosophically so and not comically so – since she herself is not really an expat herself.
Larkin’s personal story, which is both a foundational part of her play, Grief… A Comedy as well as something that she has mined for material for other shows and earlier books, is compelling. Raised here in England until her 20s, she had no notion of her actual origin story at all until her English parents told her she was actually born to two fundamentalist right wing American members of the Christian Coalition, made famous by Ralph Reed in the ‘90s. Larkin cleverly quips that she is a product of that coalition, which was one of the genuine moments of laugh out loud levity in her moving story.
For this is not the dramatic adaptation of Larkin’s origin story. That was so rich in narrative she wrote a book about it already, which is aptly called The English American. Grief is the story of Larkin making herself available enough and vulnerable enough in her 50s to find love, finding it and losing it tragically to Covid 19.
Larkin is an excellent performer. The story is well structured and well written. Gary Schreiner’s jazzy piano stylings, that often accompany more poignant moments as well as the moments where Larkin breaks into song, are sophisticated and smooth.
The performance itself and the title did make me wonder. Having just come from America for the summer, where neither my family or my friends are used to my London sharpening stone ground wit, seemed to laugh at anything that my wife, or I or my son said with classic British deadpan delivery, and equipped with the knowledge that Larkin has performed the show already as a musical in Western Massachusetts to great acclaim, I did wonder more than once if American audiences expect significantly less or require significantly less to release the funny bone reflex. There were several moments where it seemed like there was a beat too long to wait for the ripples of laughter that were not forthcoming for points that were… interesting but not rivetingly funny.
And I found myself wondering what the vocals were doing for the story. It’s hard to do funny music well. This did not quite reach that bar.
I want to stress, the story is a beautiful, life affirming one. And Larkin is a master on stage, particularly with characters and accents. I just feel it would have been so much more beautiful and so much more life affirming had the comedy been better and more finely timed.
