OH BY THE WAY, I HATE MYSELF (Elysium Theatre Company)***

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddOcAMgO8TY

Available until: Unknown

Oh By the Way, I Hate Myself is a really brave monologue. Brave for the writer and the actor. It goes against social conventions and I can imagine that some people might be upset by it. But I’m not. Although I’ll never be in this situation myself, I think it’s very real and honest – more real and honest than many people are in this character’s situation – and I think quite a lot of people would identify with it, even if they don’t feel able to admit to it.

Beth has just returned from her mother’s funeral. She found it sad. It is sad when someone falls down the stairs and dies (though I am an Agatha Christie fan and I can’t help wondering exactly where Beth was when her mother fell down the stairs). Beth spent the funeral caught between two levels of pretence. She doesn’t want the majority of people to know how difficult her relationship with her mother was, but she also doesn’t want her brother, who knows about their difficult relationship, to think she’s being hypocritical and pretending to be sadder than she actually is.

Funerals can be a minefield.

But now, Beth is home and after spending time trying to pretend she had a good mother, her insecurities and frustrations are spilling out. The way she feels fat, even though she knows, intellectually, that she’s not (and she definitely isn’t – we see her walking away at the end of the monologue). The reasons why she feels fat and her mother’s role in that.

Hannah Ellis Ryan has written this cleverly. Although Beth could come across quite badly – and perhaps she will in some people’s opinion because the quote about not speaking ill of the dead is ingrained for so many people – I don’t think she does come across badly. She’s emotional, upset and angry, but she doesn’t seen unkind. It’s much more an outburst of emotions she’s understandably been keeping inside than an attack on someone who can no longer defend herself.

Laura Littlewood’s performance supports this view, expressing Beth’s emotions convincingly but without real venom. She shows Beth’s unhappiness and her helplessness to escape from the view of herself which her mother has helped to create. Judging from the story she tells later about a humiliating moment in her life, Beth might have had very few people in her life who were truly on her side.

Jake Murray has set up the shot in Beth’s bedroom. It’s mostly focused on her, as most of these monologues are, but you can see she’s in her bedroom and I think that’s important as that’s often the room people retreat to after a difficult experience, especially when they feel like a disliked and misunderstood child, as Beth probably still does when she remembers her mother’s words and feels fat.

The decision for Beth to walk away from the camera is also a good one because it’s so very clear she is a healthy weight, closer to being underweight than overweight. (Not that I usually go around mentally weighing people, it wouldn’t be my business unless they’re friends or family and they’re very overweight or underweight to the extent where I’m concerned for their health, but it is relevant in the context of this story. I would be worried about Beth’s mental health, but not her physical health.)

 

Another really interesting and very original monologue from Elysium Theatre Company.