Review: "Superhoe" by Nicôle Lecky

Superhoe by Nicôle Lecky
Published January 2019 via Nick Hern Books
★★★

At 24, Sasha is convinced that her big break is just around the corner, as soon as she drops her EP—but in the meantime, she spends most of her time in her childhood bedroom, whiling time away and feeling isolated from her all-white household. But when she picks one too many fights with her family, she's out a place to stay...and that's when things start to change.

This must be an absolute beast to perform—it's a one-woman show, and gosh but Sasha can talk. Rather stream-of-consciousness in some places, with Sasha either recapping conversations or relating both (or all) sides of whatever dialogue took place. The play also gets quite dark. I won't get into the details, but the play demonstrates how easy it can be to slide from a tolerable situation into an entirely intolerable one without entirely noticing it.

There's a big reveal at the end, which I didn't love; it felt like it was supposed to give context for the rest of the play (which, to be fair: it did), but it also opens up an enormous new can of worms. It would be hard to explore both that reveal and the events that take up the bulk of the play without, you know, doubling it in length, so I can see why it's not explored in any detail, but...I guess I'm not a huge fan of that kind of targeted shock at the end.

Probably not my thing to watch as a play, but I bet it would be fascinating for actors with an interest in solo performances.