YOU MAKE ME FEEL SO NORMAL - A TALE OF TWO ENABLERS
VK's Comedy & Blues Bar, 60 Dixon St, Wellington
03/03/2016 - 05/03/2016
NZ Fringe Festival 2016 [reviewing supported by WCC]
Production Details
Friendship is like peeing your pants, everyone can see it, but only you get that warm feeling inside.
‘You Make Me Feel So Normal, A Tale of Two Enablers.’ Is a comedy about two mischievous girls meeting on their first day of school, and the lifelong friendship that they develop.
We all have that one friend that you want to tell everybody about. You had sleepless sleepovers every weekend, idolized popstars and she was probably there when you got your first pubic hair. You laughed together and cried together.
From innocence to womanhood in 60 minutes, ‘You Make Me Feel So Normal – A Tale of Two Enablers’ is a celebration of friendship and finding that person just as weird and crazy as you that makes you feel… so normal.
Come on a journey with Wellington singer and bio queen Jacquie Fee and burlesque rockstar Lady Sane. (Jena Turner) as they share their hilarious true stories of mischief and mayhem for three nights only at VKS Comedy Bar!
Full: $15.00
Musical , Comedy , Burlesque , Theatre ,
1hr 20 mins
Hyperactive, slightly deviant, fun
Review by Shannon Friday 05th Mar 2016
You Make Me Feel So Normal is a celebration of rock’n’roll, mischief, and female friendship. Jacquie Fee and Jena Turner are the BFFs and miscreants of this semi-autobiographical tale.
With direction by Carrie Green, You Make Me Feel So Normal details Fee and Turner’s friendship, starting from their days growing up in Palmerston North, all the way through their early 30s and living with their parents in Palmerston North.
Fee and Turner blast into the performance space at VKs in black leotards with a rebel yell, and we’re off rocking. Most of the show is super-high energy, with fast talking peeks into their friendship alternating with song and dance breaks. It’s all executed at high speed – sometimes a bit too high and the articulation gets lost in the excitement.
The sole exception comes early in the show: a letter/eulogy read by Fee following her dad’s death. The show settles for a long moment, before another dance break, which restores the balance of fun. And that’s kind of the structure of the show: the songs bring us back to the fun. The friendship always comes back and restores the balance.
The ladies are fearless with what they show, such as a memory of play fighting with poopy diapers, in which they fling diapers at each other, rubbing them all over themselves in an orgy of excess and mischief. Or the actual awkward family photos in the transitions. Or when the action shifts to a bar, and the ladies pull back the curtains at the actual bar for one of the best reveals I’ve ever seen.
It’s anchored by Turner and Fee’s willingness to throw themselves in face first into any challenge. Their relationship with each other is always the same: hyperactive, slightly deviant, fun. Even the occasional fights are fun. Even their skepticism of what the other is doing is fun.
With a friendship so strong and ongoing, it is kind of hard to wrap things up. And while the trick ending does the best it can to acknowledge this, the show still feels like it is about ten minutes too long. Overall it creates an impression that not much has changed for these ladies, certainly with how they relate to each other. The friendship always comes back.
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