Review: THE HIGH LIFE, Baron’s Court Theatre
The High Life is the latest offering from the new and emerging Forest Theatre Company, which focuses on developing new writing to tell important and pressing stories. This current project is in collaboration with playwright Scott Younger and director Sarah Githugu, and follows the story of Kayla (Feyisara Mendes), a young woman who makes her long-awaited career break in a high-powered PR company.
As with many corporate graduate roles, this opportunity is not all it seems, and its darker side is revealed as Younger unflinchingly peels back the layers of glamour on the high-flying corporate PR world to expose a mess of alcoholism, burnout, sexual misconduct and racism.
For any other twenty-something audience members with their fair share of career crises under their belts, The High Life drills frighteningly close to the bone. The High Life is a damning indictment of corporate culture and workplace toxicity, and the rawness, rage, anxiety and fleeting hopelessness of the script feels drawn from true experience. But Younger’s play is not an all-out horror story and nothing as simple as a cautionary tale. The High Life is a careful study in hard-won experience and human resilience, ultimately shying away from being desolate and defeated to being galvanising and empowering.
Kayla’s struggle with crippling imposter syndrome and a toxic office culture is compounded with her experience of racism as a young Black woman in a predominantly white working environment, a perspective that I haven’t ever seen portrayed onstage with such honesty, certainly never in a basement in Baron’s Court.
From her very first entrance, dancing onto stage to Whitney Houston, Feyisara Mendes’ charisma is undeniably magnetic. Under Sarah Githugu’s steady direction, Mendes holds the audience in a vice-like grip, dragging them with Kayla on her downward spiral. Crucially though, Mendes also brings the warmth and humour of Younger’s script to life, keeping us cheering on Kayla from the sidelines. Mendes’ command of an entire supporting cast of characters, with especially admirable accent work, is confident and unfaltering.
Josie Ireland’s lighting design helps to punctuate Mendes’ performance with gorgeous details including some coded colour choices in one particular clubbing scene.
Unfortunately for prospective audiences (but happily for the apparently formidable production team), The High Life pretty much sold out their run before the show even opened. We’ll all have to wait with bated breath for Forest Theatre Company’s next offering.
The High Life highlights an important perspective on the toxic corporate workplace. Witty, angry and unyielding – a powerful piece of very real storytelling.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett