HEADHOG

A review by Anisha from Fashion and Frappes

Headhog is billed as a comedy about a girl who has a hedgehog in her brain. Sounds funny and silly on paper but the actual viewing experience was very different from me.

It starts out funny enough with the introduction of the problem– Molly has a hedgehog in her brain. She goes to a doctor and there are scenes with the doctor explaining the issue and debating on how to operate on her, scenes showing her relationship with her father and her boyfriend and then finally we see the main issue Molly is grappling with: why the hedgehog is in her head. This question is never actually answered nor do we see why Molly gives up on the quest to understand why the hedgehog is in her brain.

The play gets dark and grim pretty quickly and it is not easy to understand the intended vibe or stance the play is to take. Was the play supposed to be a complete suspension of reality and is the audience supposed to go along with this silly incident? I was prepared to do so but some scenes seemed to imply a deeper meaning.

Was the hedgehog a metaphor for mental illness? If it was, I cannot say it was handled very sensitively. Was it supposed to be a metaphor for her arrogance and belief that she was special, saving human and animal kind? If yes, there didn’t appear to be any kind of resolution to this thread.

The play seemed to jump from one idea to another without a specific common thread running through it. Some parts are silly-comedy (naming the hedgehog), some scenes are clever-comedy (the boyfriend breaks off a kiss when he feels her tongue has become prickly) and some are dark and uncomfortable (Molly being forcibly taken for the operation).

The supporting cast is quite good – I think it does take quite a bit of skill to continue playing scenes which are improbable in the least and bizarre to the extreme. I mention this since I think the absurdity of certain scenes took away from the play. If these scenes were played in a more realistic fashion they would have heightened the absurdity of the main premise of the play and made it a tighter, clearer script.