The Love of Stationery by Lisa Maria Berg
From the moment she appears on stage we sense that something is not quite… right? Well… not that being an obsessive collector of sugar packets is wrong but it’s just not… normal? Ok, so it’s not a crime to be a bit out-of-the-ordinary, and what is ‘normal’ anyway? We try not to make judgements as Lisa Maria Berg’s character takes us through her life and times. She has a job in the stationary shop; mostly, it seems, making sure that customers use the allocated pieces of paper to test the pens. She tells us about collecting spiders as a child. And she recounts her love of irregular verbs “they are inspiring… they have broken free from regularity”. But the character, we never know her name, has some very regular habits, perhaps too regular, more like regulatory. It appears that she like everything in order, and needs to be always prepared for any situation. Watching documentaries, for instance, so as to appear intelligent in conversation. But she is not quite prepared for love.
Lisa Maria Berg is an actor and theatre maker from Norway, based in the UK. Lisa graduated from the 2-year professional course at Jacques Lecoq in 2015 and you can see the elements of comedy and the small moments of physical theatre shine through in this performance. She gives us a wide eyed, geeky look in this piece; she beguiles us with the pauses and smiles as we listen to her story about the handsome boy and her love rival. We want to like her, against our better judgement and we don’t want to be judgemental of someone who is a bit different.
Lisa can coax laughs from the audience, there are mild comic asides and she deals wittily with latecomers. Small and well used props enhance the tale, which becomes more macabre and fantastical; is it real or imagination? Hers or ours? There are some nice elements of confusion in the layers of this narrative. The story flows and draws you in, like a mini soap-opera; we want to know what happens and we revel in the unexpected twists. Lisa is a likeable actor and here gives us a strong performance in this Edinburgh fringe preview.
The show is accompanied by another fringe preview Don’t Be Terrible. It’s a black comedy by Ellen Waddell and Oliver Milburn. Can comedy save your love life? Self-confessed nice guy Steve thinks so. That’s why he’s asked Alice, an up and coming stand-up, how to make people laugh. It’s his last-ditch attempt to distract his girlfriend from the ‘funny’ guy at work. Unfortunately, misanthrope Alice believes in comedy much more than she believes in love, and may not be quite the guru he was expecting. A comedy about comedy that asks whether ‘nice’ is ever ‘funny’, and whether ‘sexy’ is ever ‘nice.’ Adrian Mantle 14th June 2018
