Batanai Mashingaidze in seven methods of killing kylie jenner. Photo / Andi Crown Photography
Batanai Mashingaidze in seven methods of killing kylie jenner. Photo / Andi Crown Photography
Social media has a strange place in fiction. Texting, emoticons, status updates, tweets all have such a place in our lives, yet trying to adapt that into film, literature or theatre rarely succeeds in an authentic or convincing way.
seven methods of killing kylie jenner, the latest production from SiloTheatre, not only succeeds in adapting the digital world for the stage, it does so with not a single screen to be seen.
The play begins with the 2019 Forbes announcement that Kylie Jenner has become the world's youngest self-made billionaire. The news annoys London-based Cleo (Batanai Mashingaidze), better known for her anonymous Twitter account @INCOGNEGRO. She fires off a Twitter rant artfully tearing apart the statement, before unveiling the first two ways she'd liked to kill Kylie Jenner.
As her tweets go viral and outrage builds, Cleo's best friend Kara (Grace Bentley-Tsibuah) comes round. For an hour, the two remain on stage, and it falls on them to bring the timeline to life.
The increasingly intense discussion between Cleo and Kara is broken up with interludes where Mashingaidze and Bentley-Tsibuah act out the timeline, moving in perfect synchronicity around the stage. The two move effortlessly between their main characters and dozens of online personalities, together delivering two of the most magnetic, engaging performances Auckland has seen for some time.
Batanai Mashingaidze and Grace Bentley-Tsibuah is seven methods of killing kylie jenner. Photo / Andi Crown Photography
It helps that Jasmine Lee-Jones' script is such a flawless, realistic imagining of how a viral scandal like this would unfold. The colloquialisms of our online language are fully integrated into the story, with Mashingaidze and Bentley-Tsibuah acting out GIFs and speaking in acronyms. Director Keagan Carr-Fransch has beautifully choreographed these dance-like interludes that heighten the words and she makes glorious use of the confined space of the Basement's main stage.
Lee-Jones' 22-year-old self shines through this play. Her words speak to a life lived online, and the authenticity of her words makes this fictional backlash feel so real to ones we've seen unfold time and time again.
It's the great twist of seven killings, drawing ticket buyers in with such an outlandish and eye-catching title, before delivering a deeply human, quiet story. Cleo and Kara's relationship becomes increasingly fractured as Cleo doubles down on her stance, slowly delivering a further five methods of killing, and each point raises new questions and opens old wounds between the friends.
Many have attempted but few have succeeded in capturing the rapid-fire intensity of a viral storm and the human perspective behind the faceless accounts. What makes this story particularly fresh is focusing it on two black women, frankly discussing race, sexuality and misogyny and never shying away from dissecting the flaws in both characters.
It all builds to a stirring final monologue that Mashingaidze powerfully delivers. Cleo's final tweets are set to follow you for days after, and would have been a perfect point to end. An additional scene afterwards slightly undercuts the message, but does offer a happier ending to a story that shows that life can carry on.
What: seven methods of killing kylie jenner When: until June 18, Basement Theatre
