EDINBURGH 2023: Review: SOPHIE SUCKS FACE at Underbelly, Bristo Square
Sophie Zucker will have you laughing one minute and crying another.
Sometimes the most beautiful shows are produced through a strangely messed up lens. This is certainly the case for Sophie Zucker's Sophie Sucks Face, a bizarre story told through music and comedy.
The show opens with the wonderful musical number "It's About Me", a joyously upbeat song which sets the scene of the show; Sophie's Grandfather's funeral. As Sophie moves around the stage via some hilariously and (hopefully deliberately) lame dance moves, she reminds us all what this funeral is really about; her. It's outrageous and ridiculous but you just can't help but laugh. Besides, the song is kinda catchy.
As the show continues Sophie catches us up on her life, her boyfriend and how her second cousin Yoni got hot. For as wrong as it is, Sophie can't help her feelings for Yoni and soon, the two hook up at her Grandather's funeral (there's that messed up lens I was talking about).
As things progress and Sophie's obsession with seducing Yoni at the next family gathering grows, it becomes more noticeable how little she is considering the reality of the situation, her grandfather's death or her boyfriend.
Sophie lays it all bare on the stage and digs deep inside of herself to guide us through her own whirlwind of emotions at the time; her grief, her belief that she herself doesn't deserve love and her difficulty in accepting that she has finally found someone who truly loves her. No better is this captured than in her song "Waste of Time" a beautiful song played on the ukelele which in one minute will have you laughing so hard you fear you may never stop and with the change of a single chord will have you in tears.
By throwing these more sincere tracks in there between the more outwardly funny songs, Sophie replicates her own disjointed emotions surrounding that time in her life, creating a structure to the show that allows the audience to both understand and relate to Sophie's experiences (even if we wouldn't hook up with our cousin at a grandparent's funeral).
Though Sophie crafts a genuinely funny hour through this outrageous situation that she presents on stage, she ends things on her song "Your Face" a beautiful song about the lessons her grandparents taught her and on her own newfound acceptance that she is worthy of love and of loving. By ending on this track Zucker really emphasises that the beating heart of her hour is not the comedy but the emotion.
Sophie Sucks Face is a beautiful show that displays Zucker's talents as both a writer and a performer and will have you laughing one minute and crying the next. Though it's bizarre humour and dark tale of death and incest may leave some less than likely to return to the show, those that get it will adore it and both the show and its songs will stick with you for a long time to come.
Sophie Sucks Face runs at Underbelly, Bristo Square until 28 August.
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