The last in the series of A Play, A Pie, and A Pint co-productions with Paines Plough, Leo Butler's Juicy Fruits is a dark, surreal comedy of manners, in which two old friends who haven't seen each other for six years meet up for a coffee and find their friendship stretched to the limit.
Lorna (Clare Waugh) is a lonely middle class, stay-at-home, suburban wife, who is finding being a mother all consuming. Her more adventurous old Uni pal Nina (Denise Hoey), has just returned from the rainforests of Borneo where she’s been involved in conservation work with orang-utans.
Nina is manic to the point of meltdown, when she’s not drfifting off into space mid- sentence. Her chatter becomes filled with backhanded compliments that provide the best comedic moments on show – offering to become Lorna’s husband’s mistress, comparing her friend’s baby son to a baby orang-utan; or banging on about how she at least is “making a difference”. But as time progresses it becomes clear that both women have their crosses to bear.
Without giving the game away too much, this a play about the strains of motherhood, female independence, and having to accept the hand that fate has dealt you. Which in Nina’s case, is a cruel one indeed. That said the piece doesn’t always convince, especially in the overly symbolic, hammer-to-crack-a-nut final scene, that relocates the action back to Borneo.
But Waugh and Hoey both turn in impressive performances.
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