Live and in person at Morning Parade Coffee Bar, Toronto, Ont. Presented by Outside the March. Plays until March 30, 2025.
Created and performed by Rosmund Small
Directed by Mitchell Cushman
Production designer, Anahita Dehbonehie
Sound designer and composer, Heidi Chan
A deceptively charming recapping of the many jobs Rosamund Small has had navigating work life with bosses, customers and men who come on to her. Small handles it all with a smile and a bit of a worried look. Beautifully acted and directed.
The Story. Rosamund Small, a gifted playwright/writer, tells the audience the various jobs she’s had, from barista at Second Cup to working for a theatre company with a confident artistic director who is much too familiar, to a show runner in on a TV show in Los Angeles. Each has its wonderful points and some not so wonderful points. Each example is described with perception, humour and an almost innocence.
The Production and Comment. In true Outside the March style, artistic director, Mitchell Cushman sets this ‘confessional’ in a coffee bar on Dundas Street at Crawford. The piece is site-specific and immersive. The audience can order their coffee and snacks before the show begins. The audience sits at tables with a book on each table—the book represents a tome that is of importance to playwright-performer, Rosamund Small.
Anahita Dehbonehie, the brilliant designer for Outside the March, adds her subtle but unmistakable flourishes to the site, with props for the show fitting in perfectly with the paraphernalia of the actual coffee bar. A prop is there among the glassed by the water dispenser. Glass domes containing something pertaining to the show are on a shelf behind the bar. Anahita Dehbonehie makes you look harder at her design and one is always rewarded when one discovers something hiding in sight that is perfect for a scene.
Rosamund Small holds up her resumé from when she was 18 years old. She lists her many accomplishments in sports, the student council, what she does well, and her gift of easily engaging with customers. She has a winning smile through it all.
Because she was too slow in doing the paperwork to be admitted to university, she decides to work and save her money. She gets a job at a Second Cup. Staff and customers love her. One customer in particular that she has bonded with keeps leaving her larger and larger tips ($100? $150?). Rosamund is generous and shares them with her colleagues. The supervisor wonders if she is doing anything extra for the tips. Initially Rosamund Small looks confused at the suggestion of her hard-nosed female supervisor. When the Second Cup location closes, Rosamund Small has to find another job.
What follows are jobs involving Small’s real profession—playwright/writer: a residency at a celebrated theatre company with a very accomplished artistic director. There are jobs in Los Angeles in television. She is invited to England by another artistic director there.
In each job Small indicates how old she was when she got the job. She flashes her winning smile, showing her innocence and wonder at it all, but underneath her charming ways, there is a sense of danger to which she is not aware. Men ‘come on to her’ when she least expects it, putting their hands where they shouldn’t; compromising her. When it happens, she is shocked and manages to either say ‘no’ or subtly move away from the hand down her pants. She makes no editorial comment. She just indicates the behaviour of the men, and the world that many have to maneuver through. Her last job is as an ‘administrative assistant.’ She gets one wondering, ‘does one stop being a writer if one isn’t earning a living as a writer’? If it’s Rosamund Small suggesting the question, the answer is decidedly ‘no.’
Performance Review is directed with subtlety and sensitivity by Mitchell Cushman. He has Rosamund Small negotiate the many tables, chairs and bar area with ease and humour. At times she sits on the bar and it seems as natural as breathing. She is not judgmental about her bosses, customers, supervisors, or the people involved. She leaves that to the audience to figure out. Through it all her smile hides a jumble of feelings and about a bundle of experiences. Rosamund Small is a gifted writer, a charming actor, and has a talent for not only being amusing, but also being subtly unsettling. She deserves a sterling performance review.
Outside the March presents:
Playing until March 30, 2025.
Running time: 90 minutes (no intermission)
www.outsidethemarch.ca