[2012090] Tough!
Kirsten Rasmussen @ Gluttony – LoFi
10:45pm, Mon 5 Mar 2012
Anxious to rid myself of the stench of The Worst Show Ever, I checked the Fringe app on my phone – a quick walk and I was scraping in to see the opening night of Canadian Kirsten Rasmussen’s solo show, Tough!. And this proved to be one of the best decisions I made all Fringe – because not only was Tough! much much infinitely much better than the show I’d just left, but it was a standout performance in it’s own right.
Tough! chronicles the rise of Lucy Diamond (daughter of the famous crooner Dicky Diamond) as she turns to boxing in an effort to find meaning in her life, after her boyfriend Dave leaves her languishing as a wannabe singer of her father’s hits in a two-bit backwater bar. She meets a boxing coach, James, who christens her “Amanda Pain” and convinces her to start training – first out of desperation and self-pity, but then out of the realisation that the goals that boxing provides are tangible… and doable.
Amanda’s development from uncoordinated, limp-wristed doormat to a prize fighter is an absolutely glorious ascent – and Rasmussen’s solo performance is something to behold. As she switches between characters, her realisations are nothing short of fantastic – the bartender, Esther the barfly, James, Lucy herself, and chief antagonist Susie(?) Fingers are all brought to life using nothing more than Rasmussen’s body: mannerisms and accents and physical traits are all utterly convincing, and completely self-contained. She actually mis-speaks for one character early on – “boodshit” comes out instead of “bullshit” – and, after acknowledging the mistake to the audience, she rides the joke for the rest of the show, giving that character the appropriate speech impediment.
Yes, it is a very self-aware piece, with constant fourth-wall-breaking asides to the audience – but they’re all wonderfully done. And the writing is really sharp – she manages to cram in oodles of character development & backstory and still leave time for periods of purely physical performance. And – despite it being opening night, with Kirsten still figuring out how to best tackle the narrow and uneven nature of the LoFi’s stage – the physicality of her fight scenes is flat-out amazing; despite being the only performer onstage, she conjures up a magical feeling of two boxers, a referee, ringside attendants, and an enthusiastic crowd. The final fight, in particular, was a brilliantly performed – and, with the constant knockdowns, perfectly paced – bit of theatre.
Tough! was a simply wonderful piece of Fringe theatre. Funny, clever, physical, and stuffed full of heart, Kirsten Rasmussen brought an absolute blinder of a show to our shows. I can’t rave about it enough.