Is it a play or is it comedy? That's the cry that goes up whenever New Mexico supremos Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez bring another show to London. This latest piece does little to clarify the issue. It's physical theatre, verbal and visual gags, with a bit of a narrative but probably not quite enough to call this a play. This review below first appeared in the Evening Standard here. My considered conclusion to this constantly inventive cross-genre conundrum? The new show is on until November 23 and it is brilliant. Stop worrying about categories and go.
The Pajama Men, Arts Theatre
At the start of Just The Two Of Each Of Us, the audience is given a stark warning: “You’d better take off your shoes because we’re gonna knock your socks off.” Shenoah Allen and Mark Chavez pretty much carry out this threat repeatedly over the next 70 minutes.
These frequent American visitors have clearly influenced British acts such as Foster’s Award nominees Max & Ivan but nobody does this kind of highly charged physical cartoonish storytelling with such vigour. Oh, and also commitment and constant inventiveness.
The duo’s latest quasi-filmic fantasy involves King Mark and his wizardy sidekick Leopold travelling 700 years through time where they encounter Beulah and one-armed Nadine who, it transpires, have some previous with them. The scene is set for a partly dramatic but mainly comic showdown.
The rapport between Allen and Chavez is so strong that at times they almost feel like one person. In fact they are lots of people, switching back and forth between umpteen characters, camping it up one minute, coming over all blokey the next. They also do a good line in dismembered body parts. Allen gives particularly good severed head, while Chavez is a more rubbery foil, whose cockney waiter is both ridiculous and believable.
It is all nonsense, of course, but exquisitely performed nonsense. The convoluted plot resolves itself with a hint of borderline deus ex machina in a medieval theme park. It sounds crazy, yet one will embrace every bit of it. If my socks were not knocked off that is only because I foolishly ignored their advice and left my shoes on.
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