Review: UNLOVABLE, Etcetera Theatre

At 30 years old, Judith is has never been in a relationship, but now she's getting ready to entertain her first date in a while. Filled to the brim with tunes from the 1950s, Unlovable is a howler of an act. Carly Jurman lands her one-woman clown show to Camden Fringe in spectacular fashion.

Physical comedy and female-centred gags follow the "unlovable" character as she struggles with the old-fashioned rules of pursuit and attempts to achieve ridiculous beauty standards. The bachelorette tries (and fails) to cook dinner and shave her unmentionables while she seeks to be the perfect choice for a man. The circus-y part of it is hilarious, with Jurman owning the stage and rebuking with farcical over-dramatic attitude the voiceover that gives her suggestions.

Then, right when the piece seems to be over, catharsis hits and the audience gets a glimpse of the real Jurman. With her face painted vaguely to resemble a clown (Judith had been trying on some new makeup earlier), she bares her soul and comes forward with hard-hitting social critique. Honest and exposed even in her goofy attire, she unveils the truth behind the pretence.

She details her personal journey through obsessively working to attain perfection: from submitting herself to plastic surgery to having beauty treatments done on a weekly basis, she recounts how she's tried to have people love her outside out of fear they wouldn't like what's inside. Therefore, Judith was born as a coping mechanism to face a problematic world.

She tackles the role of women in a misogynist society that fills their head with toxic voices, making them subdued to superimposed legislations that prevent them to be fulfilled humans. As much as Jurman says that she wrote the show to understand what made her undesirable to men, what transpires from it are the exact reasons why she is absolutely and unequivocally lovable.

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