Romance on Repeat is, ostensibly, a play about finding your Happy Ever After, and the trope filled Hallmark Movies which have set the expectations for a generation of women as to how romance should occur. But it’s also a play about grief, and about loss
We meet Lizzie (Brikaih Flore) on a bad date with Ben (Nick Wilcocks). It looks like your stereotypical Bad First Date, but in fact they’ve been dating for a year. Lizzie asks for more wine, and the waiter (Daniel Medina-Lopez) who arrives is someone she knew in high school!
Lizzie’s phone rings. The Caller ID says it’s the hospital. She doesn’t answer. Ben’s phone rings. It’s the hospital. We’re told that Lizzie’s mum isn’t well.
Lizzie wants a life like the people in Hallmark Movies. An uncomplicated Happy Ever After where everything is “normal”. She breaks up with Ben, who is, honestly, a set of walking Red Flags.
On getting home she finds some more bad wine, puts the TV into the Hallmark Channel, and promptly falls asleep.
When she wakes up, she’s in Hallmark Land! What follows is a slow descent into madness and oblivion, that probably at least sits on the edge of horror theatre, as Lizzie has to Groundhog Day her way through a series of almost identical Romance Movie scenarios.
We begin with a Christmas movie, then move onto Halloween, then St Patrick’s Day. Others are said to have occurred in Lizzie’s dreams – now nightmares – unseen by the audience.
When Lizzie finally manages to get back to the Real World, the waiter returns her handbag that she’d left in the restaurant in the first scene.
It’s here that we get the ‘surprise twist’, which has been apparent since the first scene: Lizzie’s mum has cancer. It’s stage four, and there’s nothing more that can be done. This is the end.
This is, absolutely, the type of important plot point that should have been mentioned anywhere in the information about this show. A content warning is needed here, and should have been included.
However, there is much to like here. The ‘romance movies’ section of the play has been put together very nicely. There’s a nifty special effect around Lizzie’s tendency to swear, and the scene changes have been jazzed up with a bit of fun movement.
The acting is great. Other than Brikaih Flore, everyone is multi-rolling. Well, sort of. Because the conceit is that the characters in the romance movies may have different names and jobs, and live in different places. But they’re always effectively the same character.
The examination of romance movies can’t quite seem to decide which side of the debate it’s landing on though. Are we supposed to think, like Ben, that they are formulaic and dull, or, like Lizzie, that they offer a hope of a better kind of relationship?
Currently, there’s a lot going on here.
There’s an examination of why Lizzie is so fixated on these movies, an interesting side-plot about the supporting characters, and their feelings of hollowness and depression. There’s questions being asked around what women are supposed to find attractive.
And there’s the ugly face of capitalism, and how the ‘bad guy from the city wrecking everything’ plotline doesn’t stand up to too much scrutiny. And then there’s Lizzie’s inability to accept the reality of the situation with her mum.
In short, there is too much going on for a running time of 65 minutes. Either ideas need to be streamlined, or the length of the piece expanded, to allow satisfactory narrative conclusions to be reached.
I’d like to see this play developed – there’s some really interesting ideas here, and the cast are working brilliantly as a team. But at the moment, there’s too much going on for any one idea to shine.
Romance on Repeat continues in Space 3 at The Space on the Mile at 13:50, on odd dates, until August 23.
All images, including Featured Image, courtesy of Backyard Alchemy
