Get Out of My Letter Box, Q Theatre, 19 Feb 2020: Theatre Review

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A delightfully quirky comedy, Get Out of My Letter Box opened at the Q Theatre Vault last night to a sold out crowd. It’s part of Auckland Fringe.

It was a bit steamy in The Q Theatre Vault as we made our way to our seats last night, thanks to Auckland’s current heatwave, but things were about to get a great deal hotter and stranger.

The stage is cluttered with boxes – tall slim boxes, short fat boxes and many many boxes labeled E(a)thics. The top of a tall slim box pops open, the box flops over and out crawls a young woman. She brushes herself off and turns to face us. She is Alexia (Katie Burson) and she’s just moved into 2B. She’s writing a survey. And is very concerned about a certain medium sized box she can’t find.

An older woman appears from the other side of the stage with a medium sized box, introduces herself as Hope (Beth Kayes) from 2A and she works in ethical trading, bananas from Costa Rica. Would Alexia like a banana? (No, she hates bananas.) Hope appears to be heavily pregnant, or maybe wearing a baby under her top. She hands the box over and there’s an explosive Boom! throwing both women off their feet, into each other. In a marvellous, Chaplin-esque pas-de-deux, Hope crawls across their shared brick letter box and is somehow standing on Alexia, then sitting. On her.

When things settle, Alexia opens her medium sized box and out pops a wonderful, silver machine. It vibrates, rolls around and apparently performs numerous miraculous functions, including sucking, and helping Alexia with her survey. And would Hope mind answering some questions. Curious questions – like where was Hope on a particular date in 1986?

We are suddenly transported to Costa Rica 1986, a pregnant Hope and her lover Manuel (a quick change for Burson) traveling through the jungle. A torrid affair that could never have a happy ending.

We learn that Hope had given birth to a baby girl who she put up for adoption. And Alexia was adopted as a baby. Both of them are looking – Hope for her missing child and Alexia for her missing mother. But this is no simple tale of reunion. While each suspects the other is the one they’ve been looking for, they both are equally certain that she is not. Hope is exasperated with Alexia’s never-ending invasive survey questions – questions that bring her to places she wants to forget. Is she happy? Is she happy??? She’s missing her baby, missing her 8-year-old, and her 14-year-old who’s rude to her, and her 22 year-old grown up.

They quarrel. Alexia loses a few limbs, an eye, an ear and is reborn through their communal letter box as she recounts her deepest losses. Hope suspects Alexia is the daughter of her nemesis, the American corporate prick Garth (another quick change for Burson) who has spoiled an entire shipment of bananas. Mail is stolen. Lies are told. A space postie (Kayes) arrives to protect them from solar flares. Hope delivers.

Get Out of My Letter Box is one hell of a wild ride, a mad jumble of outrageous physical comedy, laced with the indescribable loss of adoption, corporate sabotage and youthful optimism.

In addition to playing multiple roles (Kayes also takes a turn as a Costa Rican ship cleaner) Kayes and Burson conceived and created this little marvel of theatrical engineering. One can only ponder how director Ruth Dudding manages to hold it all together (or does she?) Kayes and Burson bring wonderful chemistry and sparkling insight to their roles. Strangely, it occurs to me how unusual it is to see women engaging in physical comedy at this level, maintaining it throughout the show.

Get Out of My Letter Box is an utter delight from start to finish, full of unexpected twists and flips, not a dull moment – it seemed like it was over in a flash. All smiles, we climbed the stairs back to the street, where the air was cooler, but it the real world just seemed too ordinary. A total thumbs up from me!

Get out of My Letter Box is playing at Q Theatre Vault until 22 February. More information and ticket sales HERE.

~Veronica McLaughlin

Veronica McLaughlin
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