Lara Ciulli and Riana White deliver a gripping and slippery hour of comedy in Those People at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, blending sketch comedy, dance and confessional through the lens of queer female friendship. The show keeps the audience guessing whether the pair are lifelong besties, housemates or sometimes-almost lovers, defying them to believe otherwise as they splay their intimacy, codependency, mutual resentment and few-holds-barred humour across the stage.
A double act with raw passion
The show, which has a major movement component, begins with a mime of two women crashing their car into a lake, then one rescuing the other. Being one another's salvation is the subtext of much that follows, as the pair dip in and out of malfunctioning relationships from their pasts: the partner who insisted on showing Ciulli his favourite porn scene, and the ex who refused to return White's Calvin Kleins. The latter abstracts into an underwear fever dream, then into a naked breakdance by scene-stealing Ciulli.
“You're being selfish,” protests Riana, stepping out of the show. “OK, and you're being insecure,” retorts Lara. The bickering feels close to the bone; proximity to real life and its complexities—is this a friendship? Is it a romance?—is the draw here.
An arresting debut
Ciulli's charisma and self-delighted flirting with the audience is grounded, and just about tolerated, by White. A Wuthering Heights mickey-take is fun but ancillary to the main event, while a filmed ending feels a bit grafted on, not only because it's shot against London rather than Edinburgh backdrops.
The pleasure here, when the particular meaning of a sequence escapes your grasp, is in the striking stage-pictures, the lack of filter and the rawness of the confused passion on display. Those People runs at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 30 August.
