“You’re doing really well … I love you so much,” Simon tells his partner Emily as Naked & Screaming opens to a familiar birth scene scenario – ironic, given the story that will unfold in the following 80 minutes that marks La Boite Theatre’s return. Naked and Screaming may well describe how their baby Dylan entered the world, but it is also a fitting account of how new parents Emily (Emily Burton) and Simon (Jackson McGovern) end up experiencing their first year of parenthood. They are emotionally exposed and silently screaming for help. Their frank and difficult conversations about the imbalance of their new roles and the consequences of failing to meet expectations transform.
Things move fast and as the pair’s passive aggressive demeanour deteriorates to outright snipes at each other. It is clear the new parents are struggling. When Simon heads overseas on a three-week work trip, we watch Emily’s frustration, initially through humour and then things shift. The script ensures that the laughs subtly recede as it is made clear that the sleep-deprived new mother is barely coping. Then an incident occurs that catalyses an unravelling of the couple’s relationship. It goes beyond their new parent dilemmas about losing a sense of self into a new realm of mistrust and resentment.
Staging is effective in its simplicity. La Boite’s stage is in-the-round. A giant mobile casts a hand over the domestic setting that set and costume designer Chloe Reeves has created. Ben Hughes’ lighting design works with Guy Webster’s soundscape to chronicle passages of time and illuminate the couple’s most honest conversation.
Naked & Screaming is on at La Boite Theatre, Roundhouse Theatre until 28th February, 2021.