Jack McGee
Mo Munn is a multi, multi, hyphenate. Internationally touring improviser, stand-up comic with a debut solo hour fast approaching, and now, playwright. Munn is the star, producer, and author of Oversharer. There’s not a director credited on the BATS page. Mo’s husband, Quentin Potts, and Aroha Faletolu are credited as “Wider Production team” so they may have served as outside eyes, but it’s reasonable to assume that Munn directed the work as well.
I am relieved to find that in Oversharer, Munn is not playing herself. This is not, at least as far as I’m aware, a directly autobiographical play, nor is it a standup routine in stripes. Munn has left herself room to sculpt a character, and examine them with ugly complexity. At its strongest, Oversharer is a work of surprisingly wide scope and even wider empathy. It interrogates the psychology of those we socially ostracise, creating a layered, intersectional, portrait. More importantly, it interrogates our relationship to these people. It asserts our culpability. Oversharer isn’t always hitting these peaks, but its thematic ambition is striking, and well worth writing home about.
Performance.
Munn is playing a very specific character. This is a woman, who laughs at her own jokes. Who is eager to get attention from her audience, at any cost, and is willing to drag herself over the coals to get it. There’s a difficult tightrope to walk here, where Munn has to embody this person and her various quirks in such a way that reveals her to the audience, without getting in the way of us connecting to her or her story.
One notable example is the choice to laugh at her own jokes. I go on a journey with this. At first, having not seen Munn perform before, I think, wow, this is really grating. Then, as I realise it’s a choice, my mind explodes, and I’m sold! She’s a fantastic performer! Finally, I conclude somewhere in the middle. Munn is without a doubt a strong performer, but she is one in dire need of a director.
This is especially true of the play's ending. Oversharer is not fully a rug-pull-play in the same way something like Nanette is, but it’s certainly interested in getting us to examine our role as an audience. Munn goes big with her performance in the final third, and it’s both visceral and striking. There’s an impressive amount of guts and raw acting on display, but we’re not getting everything we can from it. It feels like the right person could come in, sit with the work, nudge things a little this way and that, and I’d watch the same scene and wind up bawling. The tonal tight walk Munn has laid for herself to walk is as fascinating to watch as it is difficult to perform, and I really hope that future versions of this show (and there should be future versions) have someone come onboard to assist her in that.
Play.
Here’s what I adore about Oversharer. Opening, we’re locked in with a character who is funny, but not that funny. All of her jokes seem to involve something bad happening to her, and while we’re a little uneasy, it’s not top of mind. Some of these stories are seriously painful - “Mint and labia does not a good combo make” - but comedy equals tragedy plus time, right?
As the play progresses, it becomes impossible to separate the act of telling these jokes and stories, from the jokes and stories themselves. Oversharing, the thing that drew us in, has become the cause of the stories Munn is sharing with us. She’s ruining weddings with horrendous maid of honour speeches, and losing her job by flaming out her boss. We, as an audience, are encouraging her for our own entertainment. Either, we have a lot of the same thoughts and experiences, and it’s comforting to hear someone say them out loud, or, we don’t have these experiences, and we get the oversharer to go through them on our behalf. To expect someone to suffer, and share their suffering for your entertainment, is an ugly thing. To ostracise them for doing that, is even uglier.
Munn does not shy away from examining the role of race and prejudice in this. There’s a disturbing conversation brought up in the play, where a coworker suggests that it’s better to be friends with people who are discriminated against, as it makes you a better person by proxy. This shrewd re-framing of our relationship with audience and oversharing is understated, deftly threaded through the work, and searing in its criticism. To what extent does the white left view POC voices as martyrs, pariahs, who we keep around to draw validation from?
My feelings about performance loosely translate over to the show's script. Clearly there’s an overwhelming amount of perceptive, resonant, and layered material here, and we’re not getting everything we can out of it. There are ideas that repeat once or twice more than feel needed, and jokes that aren’t quite pulling their weight. Munn is not afraid to use rich metaphor to get her point across. Her storytelling is often lyrical, rhythmic, and with another draft to help punctuate these flourishes, the script would be downright impressive.
At the heart of the play, is the recurring question of choice. Should you be the oversharer, or should you be the restrained, buttoned up, socially acceptable version of yourself? The play’s conclusion is neither, and the idea that people are expected to exist in one of these boxes is the problem. It’s a convincing, heartfelt, final take, and hard fought at that! While I find the last few minutes of the show a little broad, its final moment is a strong call-back to the show's opening that leaves us thinking. This is a seriously strong first play. It makes the personal political, and examines our relationship with the form. It has something to say, and it not only says it, but examines it with nuance, perspective, and heart. Mo Munn, improviser, comedian, producer, and playwright - well-earned.
★★★⯪☆ - 3.5/5 Stars