A Review of Before the Drugs Kick in, Fringe 2023

Birdy hightailed it to The Space at Surgeons Hall to watch a powerful performance from Maria DeCotis in ‘Before the Drugs Kick in’.

Full disclosure here; I hadn’t properly prepared myself for Before the Drugs Kick in before the show itself kicked in. Of course, I wasn’t going in completely blind, and had it in my mind that it was a comedy with some heavy themes.

I didn’t laugh once.

The format

The show is a one-woman show – a monologue – performed by talented actress Maria DeCotis, who commands the stage and does so with a confidence and air that makes you want to hang off her every word.

The vibe

The vibe is dark. You’re taken on a journey in a dark room with one woman who’s lived through a hecka lotta trauma, and has been completely failed by the system, having lost her sons and put through electric shock therapy and a boatload of drugs.

But I didn’t think it was the clearest for the audience to follow, and we all listened in silence, utterly captivated by the performance – which takes us to some uncomfortable places.

It seemed like it was the actress speaking from her own experience, and it starts off with a line about how she cut her wrists in front of her two kids. And how, okay, that line isn’t funny – however, I was still waiting for the punchline at the end of the show.

The show itself

The show is centred around this woman – whom we later find out at the Q&A (more about that below) is called Lyn, and is simply a character based off a real person – and her experiences. It’s quite hard hitting at times, and I feel angry and sad that this has been her experience of the world.

I empathise a lot with the character, and it’s all delivered in this utterly badass female comedian style but deep down you know it comes from a place of deep hurt. Anger. Frustration.

There are some lines that could be referred to as ‘dark humour’ – lots of mentions of Jerry Seinfeld (who I’ve barely ever watched) and one about Woody Allen that skirts around the accusations about him – I’d prefer if she’d just came out and said it.

Are either of them better parents than Lyn? Of course not.

Unfortunately, any attempt at humour fell flat for me. The show was poignant, powerful, emotional and dark, but I don’t think it even got one ‘shoulder laugh’ out of me.

The writer, Mike Lemme, came on stage for a Q&A afterwards, and it was explained that: “This was a theatrical performance, by the way.” He wrote the show about his mother, and it was a form of catharsis for him. Suddenly it makes a whole lot more sense.

However I found it quite galling that he told a couple of audience members off for ‘shoulder laughing’ and not making any noise – and that the next time we wanted to do that with our shoulders, make sure to make some noise with it, too. Not the way to win me round here.

Overall

This was a dark, powerful and poignant performance by Maria DeCotis, with themes of mental health and suicide.

I found it very touching that Mike Lemme wanted to try and rewrite his mother’s story, and the show has a lot more meaning when we hear the context. Maybe just clue us in a bit earlier, Mike.