Review: Natalie Palamides: WEER

Love, heartbreak and humour are the tropes you’ll find in any romantic dramedy worth its salt. So naturally, Natalie Palamides’ take on a 90s rom-drom parodies all the clichés, conceits and hallmarks of the genre in the most insane way imaginable. 

WEER follows destructive couple Mark and Christina – both played frenetically by Palamides, half a costume on each side – on an ill-fated night on NYE 1999. In flashbacks, we bear witness to the couple’s initial meeting in 1996, Palamides leading us through their many fights, complicated conversations and intimate moments, with the audience invited to awkwardly participate and interact in the love story of the millennium (we’re warned about the splash zone on entry). 

As with the Best Newcomer Award-winning Laid and 2018’s Nate, WEER is a gloriously messy affair – water, flour, paper, burst balloons, items of clothing and more turning the tidy Traverse stage into Mark and Christina’s battlefield. Palamides’ technical dexterity is impressive, as she switches seamlessly between the two characters, crudely playing out sex acts and other physical moments in totally daft and ridiculous ways. 

Palamides is one of the very best in her field, continually pushing the boat out with her absurd and otherworldly take on clowning. But WEER encapsulates how she so deftly meshes together chaos and gross-out humour with unexpected yet welcomed hints of sentimentality along the way.