Review: #FATKARY: THE CORRIDO OF A TRAGIC EX-FAT WOMAN, Playground Theatre

You’d be hard pressed to find a more striking opening outfit in a play than #FATKARY: The Corrido of a Tragic Ex-Fat Woman.

Performer and writer Caridad Gómez dons a fat suit exaggerated to comical absurdity, her face mostly covered in the manner of a lucha libre fighter and her body obscured by what looks like layers upon layers of Cath Kidston cushions. Clad in something so cartoonish, Gómez encourages us to see her not quite as a real person, but as a caricature or a bogeyman, who can’t quite connect with her audience directly.

This feels fitting listening to Gómez’s script. We soon come to know that since her childhood in a town on the US-Mexican border, Gómez’s semi-autobiographical heroine has struggled with the dissonance between her internal self and the way she is perceived by the outside world, and between the front she presents for others and her true self.

The prologue introducing these issues is inspired by the corrido tradition of ballads sung in Mexican border country – we do receive a brief primer on Manuel Poncé’s Balada mexicana, but perhaps slightly more background on northern Mexican folk tradition would have been helpful. In any case, we’re soon hurled into a chaotic, non-chronological ride through Gómez’s young adulthood, each episode bookended by a reference to her age, weight, diet and exercise regime at the time.

Alberto Ontiveros’ direction contains the same keen attention to visual detail as the fat suit. Props seem to come to life in Gómez’s hands, particularly the bowl of crisps she devours, with relish and viciousness in equal measure, as she describes an incident of violent revenge in her hometown, and the use of a remote control car to describe the murder of a friend.

#FATKARY is thus endlessly exciting to look at, but this promise is not quite matched in its writing. There are moments of brilliance, often involving fourth wall breaks and spontaneous snatches of untranslatable Spanish, and other moments that feel more like a traditional stand-up comedy show, like Gómez asking the audience if anyone hasn’t dated a narcissist (no one raised their hand).

But this show lacks a central thread to tie it all together. There is often a sense of emotional whiplash in how Gómez can ricochet between unpacking her family history, languishing in suicidal thoughts and singing joyous cabaret songs about her life as an actress. These episodes feel as though they could each be about different characters, and the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ conceit – where audiences members spin a wheel to select the traumatic story Gómez tells – adds to the randomness of proceedings.

Certain visual devices, including a family slideshow that is far longer than it needs to be, distract from the fact that Gómez is at her best when keeping things simple, and communicating directly with her audience – something the fatsuit, which she strips off mid-show, never allowed her to do.

That fatsuit could have been the central theme #FATKARY is currently missing, the symbol of our protagonist’s constant battle between identity and external perception. For much of the show, though, it rests on a chair behind Gómez, a shell-like memory of her former obesity ominously lurking in the background of her mind. That’s a clever motif, but also something of a reminder of all this show could have been.

#FATKARY: The Corrido of a Tragic Ex-Fat Woman played at the Playground Theatre until 15 November