It’s the story of two Millennials, eager to transition from the world of short-term contracts and freelance work to stable employment. Sizzle and Spin director Kitti Laki focuses on the awkwardness of all of the character’s interactions, through encouraging consistent stiffness in every movement and making every interaction, like watching a wild animal, on the verge of becoming road kill. It’s an effective device because it heightens the comedic elements and grabs the audience’s attention, through highlighting not only Ethan and Charlotte’s endlessly magnetic pull towards each other, but their common struggles and search for something better than what they already have.
Ethan’s cocky nature is tiresome at first. Fortunately his character evolves in a positive direction once Charlotte begins to question his words and actions. At first Ethan seems straightforwardly hyper-confident, but his interactions with Charlotte are what provide the audience the opportunity to see below the surface of the hyper-confident exterior.
The consistently powerful chemistry between Charlotte and Ethan is an engaging, refreshing contribution to the overall narrative; they perfectly compliment each other, and are an unstoppable dynamic duo. Their relationship starts off by evolving organically, but playwright Sandra Cardinal uses a sudden, unexpected shift in their relationship to find an easy solution to an inconclusive narrative.
Because Sizzle and Spin centres around the contemporary, twenty-something experience it risks portraying anyone over 30, especially anyone over 30, that influences the lives of the younger generation as the cause of problems and shortcomings, however all of the characters are equally as lost, uncertain, vulnerable, and emotionally needy, regardless of their age or life experience. A good example of this is Sadie, Charlotte’s mom, played by Sizzle and Spin playwright Sandra Cardinal. The audience is led astray by the way the other characters perceive her, prior to her first entrance. All of the characters describe Sadie as a powerful, feminist matriarch, however Cardinal’s portrayal of Sadie onstage is the polar opposite. This is an excellent means of digging deep enough, into who Sadie really is, in order to avoid transforming her into nothing but a Charlie-Brown like, middle-aged adult, archetype.
One of the most problematic aspects of Sizzle and Spin is its portrayal of sexual harassment. It happens early on in the play, while Ryan DeLaurier is interviewing Ethan for the PR job that both Ethan and Charlotte are candidates for. It’s an unnerving, spontaneous incident, which revolves around a power imbalance, and inspired the audience’s nervous laughter. It’s never directly addressed, comes across as having comedic intentions, and it swiftly and quietly fades into the background, which leaves the audience questioning why sexual harassment casually showed up in Sizzle and Spin in the first place.
Sizzle and Spin is clever, light-hearted satire of widespread millennial struggles; it also comments with immense insight, sensitivity, and fortitude on the professional life of the average PR professional. Although Sizzle and Spin‘s conclusion makes the pursuit of “making it” in the world seem unrealistically easy, audience members that are, or have ever been young, lost, and unsure of themselves can take comfort in the opportunity to laugh at all of their awkward slips and falls that were a necessary means to an end, in order to find love, a fulfilling professional life, and overall happiness.
Sizzle and Spin is playing at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse until July 12.
