Review: All the Fraudulent Horse Girls
Brooklyn Rep ride into Pleasance Dome with a show that is ambitious and hilarious
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The horse girl aesthetic has had something of a resurgence in recent years – whether that’s DJs dressed up as them at Berghain, Kim Petras singing about ‘riding her horsey’ or TikTok edits of the Olympic dressage events combining with Brat summer. It’s queer, nostalgic and silly, AKA ripe fruit for a Fringe show.
All the Fraudulent Horse Girls is the show made by Brooklyn Rep to fill this horse-shaped demand. We meet Audrey I (played by a frenetic and engaging Cazeleōn) an 11-year old girl who struggles to connect with the girls at school but has just discovered she can telepathically connect with other horse girls across the globe. Audrey’s horse girl is firmly in the Y2K generation of equine lovers – think Dreamworks’ Spirit and trashy teen mags – but a kick in the head from a police horse takes her across planes to mid-century ranchero Mexico courtesy of Audrey’s current obsession with All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.
It’s hard to introduce the whole cast of characters without giving some spoilers but it is an ensemble piece, a welcome alternative to a Fringe which seems to have more one-person shows than ever before. Rachel Blaquière’s live musical score and Oli Fuller’s set masterfully guides the piece through its many different times and locations.
Sometimes it feels the writing could be more engaging and could do with the same variety and specificity that the score and set does. Across the different scenes and setting, the audience is mostly given different monologues in each, which can get a little tiring after a while. Weakest is maybe the part set in the All the Pretty Horses world with it basically just being a paint-by-numbers summary of the book.
On the flip side, with ambitious shows like this, endings can quite a lot of the time be a damp squib, but this one is satisfying, unexpected and hilarious. All the Fraudulent Horse Girls for the most part is able to live up to its ambition and is a great option for anyone wanting to see a DIY ensemble production.