REVIEW: What A World! What A World! is an entertaining head scratcher

A nicely produced but confusing night at the theater

Molly Serenduke

As you file into the big theatre at The Tank, you see a barren stage painted gray. It’s clearly stylized in a cool way and there’s buzz about the theatre - what are we about to see? Eric Marlin’s What A World! What A World! starts and it’s immediately evident that we’re about to see a play that’s both absurd and well-produced.

The entire show centers around the fictional movie from 1943, The Pearl of My Oyster. The play purposely features four sets of characters, played by two actors, in a confusing way - “don’t worry about keeping it all straight / nothing about this should be straight” - but it tends to be distracting and difficult to keep up with the narrative. In fact, I wasn’t aware of all eight characters until I looked at the script afterwards.

Queen-Tiye Akamefula and Annie Hoeg. Photo by Maria Baranova.

The characters in the play are either acting in said fictional movie, reenacting said fictional movie in drag, watching said fictional movie, or watching a recording of the drag performance of said fictional movie, at any given time. What A World! questions the meaning of camp, drag, authenticity, queer art, and the power that art has to build an identity, both self-imposed and community-driven.

Despite the unclear narrative, the production of the show was very well done. The use of practical lighting throughout the show gave it an intimate feel thanks to Skye Mahaffie’s brilliant lighting design. Ilana Khanin’s direction made the play fun to watch and the acting by Queen-Tiye Akamefula (Not Kieth) and Annie Hoeg (Not Charlotte) was charming and funny.

What A World! What A World! is an engaging and entertaining show, and worthy of a night out. What you’re about to see is a bewildering but earnest production, and sometimes, that - and an Altoid - is all you need.