Review: THE BREAKS IN YOU AND I, The Vaults

Chloe (Steffi Walker) and Joanna (Helen White) are watching Being John Malkovich when the former realises she isn't in love with her wife anymore. As Chloe tries to turn her life around after her marriage, her ex starts believing she is being mind-controlled. Written by Lizzie Milton and directed by Freyja Winterson, The Breaks in You and I is a play about passion, resentment, and weird conspiracy theories.

"You can just wake up one day and not love each other anymore" says Joanna, trying to give a meaning to the break-up. They jump on a dangerous seesaw and the unbearable weight of a life spent together falls on both at different times and measures. Chloe gets into yoga, starts a diet, and begins to date again. Joanna can't move from the couch, endlessly watches Countdown, and refuses to change her clothes until she wrestles her feelings with anger and stalking.

Their ways of coping are diametrically opposed but equally unhealthy. Milton candidly shows the tensions and paranoias of the breakup in a lighthearted way, hitting the mark with frankness and a bit of the right kind of absurd. Winterson's direction is snappy and tight, and compliments Milton's fast-paced and vivid script, tying it together in an entertaining and engrossing show.

Walker and White share a maddening stage chemistry: just like their characters, they're "fire meets gasoline" and their interactions are zealous and feverish. As White's blind-rage leads her character to blame the situation on Chloe's mind-control, Walker has the will to move on but prevents herself to do so at the same time.

Love becomes a parasite: Joanna's stalker tendencies and paranoid inclinations make her incessantly stare at her ex through her window. "I have this morbid interest in you" she confesses as she tries to understand how she can feel both exasperating lust and disgust.

Milton also succeeds in writing the lesbian couple without making homosexuality the centre of it. They reference their preference and speak openly about sex, but it's all overshadowed by the actual focus of the play: their broken marriage and the fractures between them are what makes the representation in the piece work.

The set, two chairs bound together by neon string, is simple and maybe too unadventurous for a production that could stretch the boundaries even more, but the addition of snippets of popular songs during the changes is a nice addition and allows the team to crown the intense ending effectively with Little Mix's "Shout Out To My Ex".

Ultimately, The Breaks in You and I is a portrayal of carnal love gone bad. Milton compares a relationship to an elastic band: it stretches and tightens to accommodate the changes that a person goes through, but eventually, if you're not careful enough, it snaps. It happens suddenly and it's unforeseeable.

The Breaks in You and I runs at Waterloo East as part of Vault Festival until 4 February.

To post a comment, you must register and login.