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A story of far-from-ordinary teenage friendship, Vix & Helen is a corker of a two-hander at VAULT Festival this week
“You’re thinking why are we even friends”
There’s an unnerving vitality thrumming beneath the floor of Vix & Helen that resonates far past the chilly confines of the Pit. A pair of risky teenage schoolmates certain collectively by circumstance as a lot as real friendship, their complicated relationship shifts into one other state altogether when a curious incident befalls the Reception class that their youthful siblings share.
Heloise Spring’s debut play toys apparently with kind in Maya Shimmin’s astute manufacturing. Direct deal with intervenes in dramatic scenes because it turns into clear that there’s two distinctly completely different variations of occasions being supplied right here. Flashforwards give us a tease of the gravity of what is likely to be coming to cross. Audience members on the entrance row could even discover themselves co-opted into essential exchanges that occupy one more house.
Although united by their saggy college uniform jumpers, Vix and Helen are like chalk and cheese and at this all-too-malleable age, this play probes into the dynamics of such a friendship. Tall and leggy, outwardly gregarious, Lucy Sherratt’s Helen appears to have it set, as Spring’s shorter (in each stature and temperament) Vix glowers in her shadow, their competing – however typically complementary – storytelling completely engrossing.
For nothing is actually because it appears on the floor, and positively not by way of the personas we challenge to the skin world. As such, there’s a deeply delicate exploration of the turbulent psychological well being of each these younger ladies, deepening the context of why they’re behaving this fashion. And as concern battles with competitors within the tangled internet of their relationship, the unsettling ramifications of the city legend-like story involving their siblings performs out vividly. Brilliantly carried out, I felt this one in my marrow.
Running time: 60 minutes
Vix & Helen is reserving at VAULT Festival till fifth February
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