Elf Lyons @ Pleasance Courtyard
Elf Lyons shoots for the moon in her new show The Woman on the Edge – the result is an hour of absolute perfection
Clown-mime-comic Elf Lyons totters onto the stage at the start of her latest hour, The Woman on the Edge. On tiptoes and in a red wig, she takes everything you thought you knew about clown-mime-comedy and heartbreak-grief-Apollo 13, and throws it all away. This piece is transcendental; it does away with physical boundaries, structural boundaries, social boundaries (thought you couldn’t have a bouncy castle at a wedding? On stage? Think again). This boundariless place is, in my correct opinion, a perfect hour.
The ‘main character’, if you will, is a film noir femme fatale-esque (in accent, mostly, and smokiness) understudy for Elf. She guides us through a series of seemingly nonsensical sketches (realised through a catalogue of performance; multimedia, voice over, mime, opera, acting, audience interaction) which then meet, in that ultra-satisfying way, under the singular umbrella of a woman navigating an at-times absurd life post break-up.
Although that really doesn’t do it justice. In a piece this broad and far-reaching, it would seem impossible that each thread laid in every sentence uttered, every daintily wafted hand, every banana-phone call, would be tugged on at the end and drawn into a seamless masterpiece. But, like we said, this piece is transcendental. It defies what we thought was possible.
In amongst the snails, the one-line zingers, the different women operating different parts of Lyons’s brain/show, there is a distinct relativity, compounded by the mirrors facing the audience. We’ve all been here, right? On the edge? In this fast, emotional, hilarious hour Lyons give us all the best of all: hope. It’s not saccharine, though, far from it. Lyons is a master of the push and the pull, taking us to the edge of emotional despair, but rescuing us just in time with an Apollo 13 fact, or a mention-or-ten of anal.
Elf Lyons shot for the moon with this piece, and by Pagliacci, did she land it.
Elf Lyons is The Woman on the Edge, Pleasance Courtyard (Beyond), until 30 Aug (not 17), 9.30pm, £19.50/£18.50