Words: Charlie Sampson

3 stars

What If They Ate the Baby? opens with New York-based duo Xhloe & Natasha performing as suburban housewives in a wonky, discerning kitchen layout, petticoats stained slime green. They deliver an uncanny exchange about the return of a baking dish, their absurdist rhythm and slick movement holding the audience in a state of amused unease.

The conversation repeats in a loop, slowly fraying as fragments about missing neighbours or absent husbands surface. We’re invited to piece together a broader picture. But the disintegration of language and movement felt slow to take off, and once it began, never pushed itself far enough. The performance style remained static. I found myself craving a collapse of the carefully constructed housewife accents, for the choreography to become more chaotic, more unpredictable. Instead, we were drip-fed minimal revelations that never fully landed or offered any sense of closure.

A homo-erotic thread bubbles under the competitive dynamic of the characters, handled with humour and tension. However, the repressed American Dream housewife aesthetic is one well-worn in feminist theatre, and here it didn’t feel like a particularly new take.

Xhloe & Natasha are clearly a tight, experienced duo. Their comic timing and physical command are impressive. But ultimately, the work felt relatively one-note. I left wanting to be taken further, to feel more risk, more rupture.

What If They Ate the Baby?
The Space @ Niddry Street
13:45/19:25/21:25
1–23 Aug