Because, the first of Doctor Brown’s trilogy, continues until Saturday.
It’s the end of the show. There’s no-one on stage but it’s not empty. A slice of white bread with Nutella spread on it has been pressed into an abandoned yellow crash helmet. Viscous clear drips like errant cum are splashed around the wooden floor. There’s a pile of clothing next to the helmet atop of which sits a pair of men’s pants. Beneath the feet of the first few rows are a mixture of cereal, olives and brine. One audience member has cornflakes in her hair. Another is sitting about ten rows back from where she first sat down. Outside the auditorium’s main exit, Doctor Brown is stretched out on the floor face down. He’s wearing a skimpy dress and no pants.
One hour earlier…
From a side door, Doctor Brown enters the auditorium sitting on an office chair and pushing himself along with his feet. He’s wearing a suit and holding a small suitcase on his lap. Seated punters are politely but firmly shoved aside as the bearded mime makes his way to the stage. Once there, he stands up and pulls out a banana from the suitcase. He carefully and wordlessly proceeds to eat it. Another banana is eaten, the skin thrown at the audience. Yet another banana is produced and peeled and this time the banana is thrown away.
The well-dressed reviewer in the front row is probably jotting down notes on how Brown is evoking the opening scene to Krapp’s Last Tape and hence taking a very Beckettian and avant garde approach to his comedy. She’s proud to have made some profound connection between what she is seeing and “proper” theatre, whatever that may be. Brown pulls the notebook from her hands and proceeds to cruelly mock her scribbling actions before flinging the pad back at her. She gets off lightly.
One of the guys to her right is caught fiddling with his phone and has it yanked away from him. Brown randomly picks a number and calls it. “That’s my client!” exclaims the phone’s owner as a muted voice can be heard speaking from the handset. “That was your client,” thinks everyone else. Brown hangs up, eventually.
What happens next has no pattern, no theme and no logic. There’s food, there’s role play and there’s plenty more audience abuse, especially of the front row. People are snogged, sun tan lotion gets applied and fairytale creatures are chased around the auditorium. Leonard Cohen’s In My Secret Life plays while Brown enacts sex scenes that would make Prince blush. The audience are as much a part of this as anything else and it is their collective and individual reactions that make Because the brilliant and unique show that it is.
Doctor Brown’s Because continues until this Saturday. Next week, Doctor Brown returns with Becaves (19-24 January) followed by with Befrdfgth (26-31 January). See the Soho Theatre website for more details.
Because. Performed by Doctor Brown. Soho Theatre, London W1D 3NE. £15. www.sohotheatre.co.uk
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