Breaks – Smock Alley – Tiger Dublin Fringe Review by Robert Dooley

Dates Sep 12 – 18 @ 20:30 / Sep 17 – 18 @ 15:00 – Tickets €14 / €12 conc.
Duration 50 mins – Venue: Smock Alley Theatre Boys’ School

“How is it possible to kill someone without a reason?” is the question we’re asked in “Breaks”. Tracing the story of serial killer Gesche Gottfried in early 1800’s Germany who, for the purposes of the play, adorns thirteen corsets to fulfil an image of beauty, it is a piece that for all the obvious passion behind it falls some way short of the mark.

Gottfried murdered a total of fifteen people with arsenic including husbands, lovers, children and friends. She was beheaded in Bremen in 1831 and became the last person to be executed in the city. This story would be the perfect vehicle to explore feminist ideals and a woman pushed too far however I left the theatre feeling that I had learned little about Gottfried and even less about what the play was trying to say.

With excellent stage design and an eerie opening my expectations were high at the start. However without a clear narrative and what seemed to be the three leads swapping roles at will I was quickly lost. It’s never a good sign to see audience members looking around in befuddlement at what was on show in front of them and even less of a good sign when at times the actors miss their cues and deliver lines over one another. The language used was all modern, which was understandable as I don’t think a show in early 19th century German would be a big seller, however there were one or two references from much later years that I found jarring.

At times it felt like watching two shows, one dealing with Gottfried and another dealing with femininity and societal views of what women should or shouldn’t be. It never felt that there was a clear connection between the two parts and the show lacked flow as a whole. The show did shine when it came to the feminist aspect. You could really feel the passion of the performers and the section of the production dealing with the barrage of criticism that women are subjected to is both humorous and striking. Interspersed among the show are song and dance numbers which added nothing to the whole proceedings and if anything were just a distraction. Building to the crescendo of one of the performers adorning the aforementioned corset, it felt a bit hollow. It was clearly meant as a powerful moment in the play but it lacked any emotional foundation for it to really land.

It was frustrating leaving the theatre because the story and themes have a lot of potential however I felt it wasn’t realised on stage.  A more straightforward structure would have suited the story and the themes better. Theatre, like all forms of art, is subjective and there are people who this style of storytelling will appeal to. Unfortunately it just wasn’t for me. As they say themselves “Them’s the breaks!”