IT’S NOT ABOUT LOVE
The Chocolate Factory
★★★☆☆
There comes a striking moment during Megan Riordan's considered cabaret show when everything stops, like a missed heartbeat. In a performance that analyses love and love stories through the prism of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, she halts the spry layers of alternative pop and wryly assembled personal material to say, "Oh my god, this is actually my life."
Whether Riordan’s own emotional patterns imitate art (playing Juliet was a turning point), though, or she fears revealing too much, the show must go on.
Under Aoife Spillane-Hinks’s direction, there is much to show, beginning with a précis of human psychology, neurochemistry and cultural theory (“Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk,” Riordan half-jokes). But the show is most effective in its mixtape rush of music and memories, spilling truths more raw and affecting than the elaborate concept and, finally, a stridently emotive performance convey. Reconceiving the tragic Juliet as a warrior for our times may likewise feel glib, but, after so many scenes of heartbreaks, thankfully romance isn’t dead.
