Natalie Palamides doesn't do things by halves. Actually, the Los Angeles-based clown does just that in her inventive new show Weer – a hit at the Traverse Theatre at this year's Edinburgh Fringe – in which she plays the male and female partners in a fractious relationship. Simultaneously.
Weer – the title is explained late on – tells the story of Mark and Christina. Palamides' costume and wig are divided into male and female halves, so as her left side is turned to the audience she is Christina, with her right side, she is Mark. It is, as you may imagine, a very physical performance, but Palamides is always able to delineate the two characters, nowhere better than when the couple fight over the car keys and she manages to parlay their height difference as they tussle. The sex-in-the-shower scene – hands everywhere – meanwhile, is gloriously, delightfully daft.
We meet Mark and Christine at a party on New Year's Eve in 1999. They are arguing as Christine thinks Mark has been ignoring her and flirting with other women; she leaves, there's an accident and then we go back in time to the start of their relationship three years before – with its undeniably meet-cute moment – and see the various wrangles that followed.
There's a fair bit of audience participation to create the other characters in this story, but Palamides is an old hand at this so knows just how far she can push it. There are a few nods and winks to the audience, too, as Mark particularly wants them on his side. The stage, which appears messy from the start, looks like a bomb's hit it by the end, an indication of the chaotic nature of Mark and Christina's relationship and the wreckage it leaves behind.
Palamides elegantly spoofs romcom tropes and there's a clever deceit about why the couple felt a connection the moment they met – “I felt she was my other half” – and some lovely visual gags along the way, not least using talcum power to show Christina's frosty breath the night of the accident.
It's a mad story but, despite the often frantic nature of the beast, the energy dips towards the end and it feels overlong at 75 minutes. But what a lot of fun it is.
