The Worst of Scottee – Theatre Works
Photobooth confessional makes for surprisingly compelling theatre.
Overview
A one man show where the English artist spills the worst episodes of his own life, The Worst of Scottee begins with an arresting performance of Cry Me A River. Seated in a claustrophobic photo booth Scottee sings into the camera, his pathetic appearance is married with an incandescent, searing singing voice while he spurts black tears from his sunglasses.
The performance conjures the image of a squid diffusing a cloud of ink to escape its predators, and this infuses the whole performance. It quickly becomes clear that most of Scottee’s stories stem from avoidance. He invariably confronts problems with deception, even when his outright, ludicrous lies only lead to even more painful situations; whether it’s pretending that his first girlfriend has killed herself, or telling a community theatre group that he’s been diagnosed with AIDS after they fire him for missing a workshop.
The substance and content of these stories themselves — even if they are gripping, veering between harrowing and hilarious — aren’t enough to make a piece of theatre. But it’s the artist’s exploration of the confessional form itself, which houses these stories, that elevates The Worst of Scottee into an unforgettable, fascinating performance.
The trope of the sacred Catholic confessional is well-established. By situating a similar narrative within the voyeuristic confines of a photobooth Scottee’s work carries the suggestion that our selfie generation’s tendency for endless oversharing and self-documentation is strangely a form of self-disguise — a bank of Instagram thumbnails every bit as murky as a squid’s cloud of ink.
The stories are interspersed with more songs and music, as well as intercut footage of interviews with several women who’ve known Scottee in the past. The editing required in these vignettes to give anonymity to real-life figures invests these interludes with authenticity, and their scattered reflections on Scottee’s character help to round out his character in a way that would be impossible if he remained the piece’s sole narrator.
Most of The Worst of Scottee is delivered straight to the photobooth’s camera, screened live on the outside for the audience. But paradoxically, where a lone performer could only make eye contact with audience members one by one, the effect of performing much of the show down the barrel of the lens means that we can actually all meet his gaze at once.
Apart from occasional asides Scottee only engages with us directly when he’s singing. Taken with his background growing up as a gay, isolated young man on a council estate (the equivalent of our housing commissions) there’s an implication that he’s only really himself when he’s singing. Indeed, the only time he leaves the booth is for the show’s finale, a fragile rendition of Non, je ne regrette rien: "No, I regret nothing."
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