It can be hard not to fall into despair when contemplating all the different apocalypses we face today — climate change, oligarchic billionaires, social media brain rot, rising authoritarianism, talking to your father about your gender. But Mermaids Have No Tears, written by Ellis Stump and directed by Julia Sopher, manages to take in the overwhelming chaos of life in this moment and explores it with hope, humility, and a whole lot of humour, all through the lens of the fascinating subculture of Mermaiding.
Set during the 2024 and 2025 New York Mermaid Conventions and the intervening year, the play follows the intricate and mildly unhinged antics of three twenty-somethings. Fyn (played by Everleigh Brenner) is the environmental activist child of an oil tycoon trying to figure out how to avert a heatwave (with a big hat?), and also how to gender (with carabiners?), and also how to maybe kill their father (with a gun from Walmart?); Brenner’s performance is brimming with pathos, and they deftly balance the manic fervour of everything Fyn is grappling with with a deeply moving vulnerability and a delightfully Natasha Lyonne-esque New York accent. Wade (played by Jack Flammiger) is a bubbly, fact-filled golden retriever of a best friend who loves love and academia, and Flammiger imbues the character with a liveliness that is so much fun, whether it’s lecturing in character as Danish Bi-con™ Hans Christian Anderson or moaning to an audience member about the wait to get snack food. Rounding out the trio is Morgan (played by Olivia von Opel), Fyn’s girlfriend who may be a 3,000-year-old real mermaid Guardian of the Atlantic, may be the child of poor Floridians, or might be both(?) — von Opel approaches what in another play might have been a one-dimensional ingénue with an assured sense of both heart and whimsy, pushing the character into a zone of exquisite camp.
The entire production is, indeed, exquisite camp — Stumps in her writing fills the show to the brim with dialogue that manages to be silly without ever losing its intelligence, and the at-times bizarre decisions the characters make (why are you doing polyamory this way???) and the open questions the show leaves (IS SHE A REAL MERMAID??????) both delight in their absurdity and speak to the experience of being in such a weird and uncertain time as the one we inhabit. Shepherding all of this into reality is the costume/set and lighting design of Yasmin Parekh and Leo Bacica (respectively), which does so much to bring the show to life, and Sopher’s astute direction. Often times, a show like this can be difficult to make sense of, but Sopher manages to steer the ship through uncertain waters into an island paradise on the other side — something with emotional heft, many, many laughs, and something meaningful to say about how, even if we can’t solve all of the overwhelming problems that barrage us in the news, at least we have each other (and should we be a throuple?).
Run time is 85 minutes with no interval.
Bookings run until May 17th at the Barons Court Theatre and can be found here: www.baronscourttheatre.com/mermaids
Reviewer: Zak Rosen
Reviewed: 2nd May 2nd
North West End UK Rating: