Play Overview: ‘I Meant What I Said’ at Teatro Live

Teatro Live debuted I Meant What I Said, written and directed by Stewart Lemoine, their co-founder and resident playwright. And they couldn’t have hoped for a greater launch of this play. The play is wacky and eccentric, filled with shiny characters that draw you in earlier than hitting the viewers with one thing extra emotional and reflective.

It’s Dinah’s (Bella King) thirtieth birthday and he or she’s attempting to not spiral about what turning 30 means. So naturally, she makes new associates, finds some previous ones, and takes off on a chaotic journey. Much of the play in Dinah’s inside ideas and creativeness dropped at life, and it isn’t at all times clear how a lot is actual and the way a lot is fiction. 

King performed Dinah spectacularly. Her vitality and skill to seize the viewers’s consideration shone by way of. And it was no simple feat — there was barely a second when she wasn’t onstage for the 80-minute run time. She carried the narrative by way of the scenes with different characters and her Fleabag-like inside monologue moments.

The characters held their very own too. Juris (Eli Yaschuk), the Latvian waiter turned Dinah’s pal, wormed his method into my coronary heart. Yaschuk’s appearing was improbable, gentle and humorous when it wanted to be, however capturing the emotion of a dramatic scene with out pause. 

Helen (Jayce Mckenzie) and Alex (Sam Free) grew on me. Helen was stiff and brash at first, however slowly softened and warmed. Alex steadily got here to be greater than only a figment of Dinah’s creativeness, although he remained much less fascinating than the others. 

The Oddball (Nida Vanderham) can’t go unmentioned both. She switched from the mistress/flight attendant to a Swiss mountaineer to a human pylon with ease and mastery.

The set captures the whimsy of the play, with planets hanging above the stage and a set of image frames because the backdrop. The frames have been used to carry the inside ideas of a number of the characters to life, displaying Latvia in Juris’ recollection and the Swiss Alps because the group travelled.

Most of the play — together with the set and tech — was shiny and lighthearted, however the actors dropped breadcrumbs of one thing extra severe all through. In the top, all of it got here again right down to Earth within the bittersweet actuality of Dinah’s life. But greater than that, it grounded all the play in hopefulness. Even when you can’t teleport to the Swiss Alps, there’s nonetheless lots to understand about actual life.

I Meant What I Said is a home-grown play you received’t need to miss. From the performances to the tech, it comes collectively to be a memorable, stunning play.

I Meant What I Said is enjoying at Teatro Live till March 8.