Caged in a shoebox-sized office, burned by the sterile glow of corporate fluorescence, Myah — a young, Black, dissatisfied white-collar worker — barrels toward us through the fourth wall. Her workplace is a panoptic hellscape ruled over by a hunched, finger-wagging man who thinks he knows best. Like many other young people in the 21st century, she must accept a little bit of soul-suck and a little bit of discrimination if she’s to keep enduring the life that leaves her hesitant to even approach the one other POC employee in the office (the janitor). This is the tension at the centre of British playwright Amanda Wilkin’s Shedding a Skin, a Nightwood Theatre production directed by Cherissa Richards at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.
In an incredibly convincing English accent, Vanessa Sears portrays Myah, a struggling millennial living in an increasingly entropic world of distractions and systemic injustices that nurtures anything but connection. Through an artful blend of monologues and character impersonations, Sears imbues Myah’s story with compelling tenacity. The actor’s remarkable skill guides the audience through the emotional journeys of two Black British women from different generations; Myah’s youthful inexperience contrasts with the layered historical perspective of Mildred, a Jamaican elder who becomes Myah’s landlord. Sears’ performance resonates with such power that I even found it a little off-putting when she impersonated characters less deserving of her voice, such as Myah’s insufferable boss.
One day at work, Myah finds herself invited to a company photoshoot, only to discover she’s being used as a diversity token amid recent press scrutiny. This event enrages Myah enough to leave the corporate world and face the clustering, overwhelming city of London all by herself. Amid this chaos, Myah faces the daunting challenge of navigating not just the city, but her own identity and place within it.
In this one-woman show with minimal props, meticulous production design ensures the stage still feels richly populated. Thoughtful sound (designed by Cosette Pin and steph raposo) and projections (designed by Laura Warren) enhance Sears’ impeccable comedic timing and extend the emotional impact of Myah’s monologues. Emerjade Simms’ masterful shadow direction and Shawn Henry’s effective lighting design help create the sense that other characters are flitting around Sears in silhouette. In scenes set in the corporate environment, these shadows loom judgingly, while the warm, intimate space of Mildred’s home fosters connection and discourse.
Mildred offers Myah two much-needed things: a cheap room, and the wisdom that comes from having lived a rich and difficult life. The two leave an impression on each other day by day; Mildred’s opinionated and heavy-handed nurture challenges Myah’s polite, wayward smallness, encouraging her to see life another way — by going on slow walks, knowing your neighbors, sharing good food, and taking up space.
Set designer Jung-Hye Kim‘s elegant minimalist design perfectly mirrors the evolving self-confidence of Myah, who metaphorically and physically pushes on the three enclosing walls of her world as an act of liberation between scenes. During these transitions, outer panels display projections of queer couples and marginalized individuals going about their lives. These scattered references to queer themes — including a fleeting comment about Myah’s attraction to a waitress — feel half-baked, and disconnected from how queerness informs the two women.
Narratively, many other tangents come off as superfluous — distracting news sequences, a mug at the office, a loser boyfriend with whom she previously shared a houseboat but didn’t actually care much about. While intended to illustrate the overwhelming circumstances surrounding Myah, I found these digressions distracting, and inconsequential to her actual dilemma and the person she’s on her way to becoming.
Perhaps it’s Sears’ incredible charisma and advocacy for Myah, but it comes as a surprise in the third act when Myah confesses a deep palpating sadness that she’s been living with all along. Myah never truly explores or sits with the weight of this pain, leaving us to wonder how her confidence managed to conceal her profound sorrow. An explosive confrontation between Mildred and Myah over a failed date, though framed as a kettle-whistling climax, feels contrived. Nonetheless, the event serves as the catalyst that finally breaks their emotional barriers and opens them up to one other. Shedding a Skin might not have needed such a breaking point to unite these women — Mildred’s influence was already potent, if gradual; they were always destined to reach each other eventually.
In the final minutes of the play, Kim’s delectable box peacocks — the walls that once confined Myah become a platform for her expression. The projection panels unite like a grand altar, serving as the background for the women’s mic-dropping finish. This ending is a cavalcade of catharsis. In the pouring rain, the women dare to be unapologetically loud, channeling the power of Piccadilly Circus to roar, and avenging all the times they were silenced. Shedding a Skin is for anyone who’s ever been made to feel so small that they hold their loved ones close and let out one big scream.
Shedding a Skin runs at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre until May 4. Tickets are available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
WRITTEN BY
Lulu Liu
Lulu Liu (she/they) is a multifaceted Chinese-Canadian artist working across film, writing, and technology. Her creative endeavors explore themes ranging from the monstrous feminine to the search for tangibility in the digital age with needlecrafts such as knitting. Having recently completed her directorial debut—the dark comedy short “Cherry On Top”—she’s now directing a Scott Pilgrim-inspired music video that uses pop-punk to air grievances about the city. True to her interdisciplinary spirit, she can also be found zipping through town on her bicycle.
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