Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner | Darlinghurst Theatre Company & Green Door Theatre

Talk about eager beaver. Over dressed and there at the venue an hour earlier than I needed to be. I felt super anxious by the time the show started because I’d arrived at 6 and there was no one there. I thought….fark, is anyone coming…..am I here on the right night all these questions started appearing in thought bubbles, and as quickly as they appeared they would dissipate……”Will they perform the same for two people?”, will the show be tired because they are 3 weeks into their season, will they even decide to go ahead with it with such little numbers……..

….but I just needed to look at my ticket stub to see that the show wasn’t due to start until 7.30pm.

I sat back, took some deep breaths, had another beer and waited til show time. At 7pm, a heap of people started rocking up and I thought phew, I’m glad there’s crew here. As a performer, it’s hard not to take it as a bit of a kick in the guts when the room is empty when you get on stage. 7.30 soon came and the familiar bell of show time ushered the mostly femme 20’s somethings demographic into the theatre.

Images supplied by La Boite.

We were 2 rows from the front and had a great vantage point of set. A bedroom scene with a low square roof overhanging, a bed on one side and a bookshelf bench on the other. It looked cosy and I wondered the type of person who’s place it was. They say that our things say a lot about us. I ran my eyes over every detail, noticing books, board games, a cosy bed with one pillow, a quilted doona and I thought whoever’s place this is … they likely enjoy comfort, slow mornings and okay with their solitude.

The audience lights dim, and the stage lights come on. Two figures appear out of the darkness struggling, hauling an object that looked a lot like a dead body being disposed of…..Kylie Jenner?

A twitter logo projects on the low hanging roof, like a square cloud hanging over Cleo’s bedroom. Cleo (Effie Nkrumah) declares the first method of killing Kylie Jenner in hashtag form. These hashtags continue throughout the play, book ending each act: #deathbyskinny, #deathbydisgrace, #deathbyimmolation, #deathbydisplacement to name a few. Where have I seen these methods of killing before? They seem to fit the experience of what women across the globe have faced in history, especially WOC and that still experience death by these means today.

The second cast member, Kara (Ionlanthe) enters stage as a friend dropping in, and the two interweave a one big act show existing in the virtual world and in the physical world. Each post by @incognegro receives responses from followers that the two ricochet off each other in turn. Cleo holds an iPad throughout the play, as if she is deep in social media and having a spirited chat with her friend at the same time. It wasn’t until the end of the show that I overhear an audience member say, ‘Can you believe she was the understudy?’ I would not have picked that at all by Cleo’s delivery of her lines, with the right amount of expression and at lightning speed. The iPad seemed more like a prop of what we see all millennials doing – holding a device.

Images supplied by La Boite.

Play wright Jasmine Lee Jones explores a range of issues in this creation. Issues we face in this society as women of colour with working through the trickiness of white-privilege, attraction and body-shaming, the male gaze, sexual assault, sexuality, colourism and the deep dive discord of social media. It reminds us all the social media can be a dark space and it’s easy to lose yourself in it. And also, how much our privacy is abolished in our absent minded engagement in it. How many times have you felt the pang of reaction / non-reaction to a post you share? We all do it. And it’s crazy!

These issues aforementioned are all explored in this play through the lens of a relationship of two friends and how they navigate staying connected, being honest and vunerable with each other, despite having very different experiences and shades of blackness. Kara at one time saying ‘you don’t own blackness Cleo’.

There is so much in this work, I want to go and see it again. A brilliant play, incredibly well written and delivered with just the right amount of stress by these stunning actors. A definite must see with only two days remaining for this Brisbane season. Get along. You will not be disappointed.

After the show I went home and watched twenty minutes of Keeping up with the Kardashians for the first time, I now understand why killing Kylie Jenner seems like an appropriate thing to do. Cleo removed her cardigan during the play to reveal a shirt with the text saying ‘White Girls copying Gay men copying Black Girls’, Kylie Jenner created wealth from appropriating black culture. Seems like the 7 methods offered are a lenient pathway for Kylie’s salvation.