‘Matthew Radway’s ‘SUPER’ debut’s this Edinburgh Fringe, down in the atmospheric Pleasance Courtyard Cellar. A very tidy two hander, it features Max Dowler and Charlie Vero-Martin as Rick and Katherine respectively, conducting a lively autopsy on a failed marriage. The play takes its title from its setting amidst the mostly superhero garbed performers patrolling Hollywood Boulevard in search of tourists, their cameras, and their tips.
Driving home the point, Dowler and Vero-Martin take the stage in costume, Batman and Catwoman respectively. The latter has moved on, but to Rick, she’s still Catwoman. Now, Robin, or rather Steve, once a close friend to both, has made it big, and the press have come to interview his former colleagues for a little background.
This is a funny play, make no mistake, not least in the contrast between Rick’s big-hearted, ‘never give up’ attitude, and Katherine’s more phlegmatic philosophy. Dowler is fantastic, impossible to dislike, and an arch self-sabotager. Vero-Martin plays it nice & cool, the perfect foil, her take on their shared history more credible, and less fuelled by a need for others to like her.
Radway enjoys a rich seam of humour, not least due to the the inherent bizarreness of the ‘superhero’ lifestyle. We know everything has gone wrong with their relationship, but Radway takes their time to reveal the sheer catastrophe with which it terminated. There’s sophistication in making neither a villain. Both have made questionable choices, both have cause for a little shame, but they aren’t ‘bad’ people, just very different people. There’s more tragedy to Rick’s predicament than the play seems comfortable with embracing, but perhaps it would be just too challenging to juggle and retain the ‘comedy’ tag.
It’s not even that they didn’t love each other, or that they are entirely responsible for just how badly things turned out. By structuring the play as intertwined monologues, Radway shows us their history in binocular vision, a thought experiment in what happens when grit and determination meets, and marries pragmatism. It never feels stale, never slows, segwaying from one actor to the next efficiently. By having only one actor on stage for most of the 1 hour run-time, it also creates a sense of event when the two finally share the space.
Most critically, perhaps, the play does well to create the world in which our ‘heroes’ operate, the baking summer heat, the homeless actors in cardboard city, the ironically placid Hulk working the Boulevard, and the desperate dreams keeping it all alive.
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