Co-directed by Katherine Lyle & Andrew Friedman

Review by Marina Funcasta

Drayton Arms Theatre

Petit Léopard takes its time to charm, but much like a guarded cat, once let in by Capucine Earle’s performance, we are caught by her defiance – hook, line and sinker.

Anchored in the beloved, post-feminist ‘Messy Woman’ genre, Earle’s character seems comfortable with her own imperfection. Indeed, rotting with flair, we are welcomed into her world of mid-life lethargy through scenes of sofa lounging, all the while flicking through reels, surrounded with dirty clothes and opened Peperami packs. Safe to say, the leopard has marked her territory. Chaos engulfs this private world, existential and figurative disorder seeming as familiar to Earle as it does to Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Fleabag, or Aisling Bea in This Way Up. There is something empowering in witnessing this fluttering between the external world of mess and her internal dream world of feline fancy, even if at times I couldn’t help but be reminded of Memory from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s ‘Cats’.

Fleeting decadence and metatheatrical humour aside, the raw emotion Earle transmits to her audience is an impressive trait of the production. Much like Elaine Page’s rendition of the hit song, Earle captures a sense of loneliness with glimmering poignancy. For me, this is when the heart of Earle’s piece became clear. Holding themes of repair and recovery, these are approached with a defiant self-reliance by Earle in such a way which cannot be taught. Coping with a break-up, her grandma’s death, and professional disillusion, Earle exposes her vulnerabilities through shadowed fragments, performing them behind a triangular screen. I felt this to be a very smart inclusion into the otherwise naturalist set, a credit to stage designer Claire Adams.

This fragility is cupped in a quintessentially French kind of defiance. Indeed, Earle glamorously owns her ‘rot’ through her brandished bilingual identity. Although the inclusion of French poetry can be confusing at times, it quickly becomes a natural part of her voice. This felt most genuine in Earle’s looks and gestures, the best example being the scene of her friend’s long voice note – a peek into the intimately European dealings with the heart. In spotlighting these ordinary intricacies, Earle achieves most of her poetry, defamiliarising very ordinary moments and amplifying their preciousness. Katherine Lyle’s direction helps with the subtleties of these scenes, particularly the barista choreography, which circulates the second half of the performance. This half outshone the first. This was because Earle’s voice felt easier to follow, largely a result of the dissolution of interjections by Richard A. Horn, assuredly performed by Andrew Friedman. Funny in its own right, the introduction of this narration stands more as an obstacle towards the audience’s gradual attunement to Earle’s already poetically accented narration.

This point leads to what I found most interesting about the program – Earle’s mention of Poetic Theatre. Mentioned in the Creator’s Note, I was taken by the capitalisation of the words, as after having seen clown shows of a similar style, I hadn’t realised the inclusion of poetry could transform the genre. And yet, by interweaving the forms in a singular one-woman show, Earle disarms her audience only to strip away the layers of chaos in a delicate, vulnerable and inspiring final sequence.

As noted earlier, for me, this show was about repair: repairing from within, the chaos it demands, and its external manifestation. Most beautifully articulated in the repairing of her leopard ears, heavy themes are handled with childish innocence, leaving no doubt as to the love pumping through her writing. Her style is guarded but generous, and by the end of her performance, she asks nothing more but to be held, fleetingly, by her audience. And how can we not, clapping and smiling to the soft sounds of Niagara’s ‘Pendant que les champs brûlent’ as Petit Léopard dissolves and Cappucine Earle emerges. An ode to the enchanting power of dress-up, this CKC production dazzles with potential.

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