Names go missing like lost socks in this laundry-based, amnesia-laced romcom. With crackling chemistry but a holey structure, Zofia Zerphy’s Offie award-winning story of a queer meet-cute asks what you hold on to once a relationship is over, and whether it’s ever better to forget the mistakes you both made.
In the liminal space of a launderette, with their encounter framed by a washing machine’s 50-minute timer, Kitt (Zerphy) and Noel (Rhiannon Bell) talk over each other at full speed. “How will you use your 50 minutes?” Kitt asks. Their connection is easy and instant as they use them to bicker and flirt, discussing art, exes and the correct laundry tabs to use. Kitt is the rich, confident American, more privileged than Noel, the messy, Northern Irish, non-binary stranger. Except they don’t feel like strangers. With Bethan Rose’s direction making the most of the small stage, the pair lean close over the whirring machines, unpacking the ways they’ve been shaped by past relationships, and admitting they’ve both dated someone very like the other. In fact, they could swear they’ve met before.
As memories are tumbled up, this breezy romcom devolves into an airing of dirty laundry. Occasionally slipping into shouting matches, the story sings when they admit their feelings slowly, almost side-on, like Noel inspecting Kitt as if she’s one of their sculptures, tracing a tingling line from wrist to shoulder on her skin.
The memory-loss set-up creates a thrilling puzzle, but it’s never pieced together. No explanation is given for the selective memories that build the story, so we have no idea why one remembers something when the other doesn’t, or what prompts that memory to fade. Without this structural scaffolding, the mystery loses its momentum. The attraction between Kitt and Noel is evident. We just need to understand the rules of their memory-muddled world to feel our 50 minutes is well spent.
