The Alphabet Girl

Edinburgh Festival 2015
London Theatre Guide
15th August 2015
The Alphabet Girl   Space on the Mile      ****

This monologue play by Renny Krupinski serves as an excellent showcase for actress Kaitlin Howard while offering a good share of character insights, surprises and comedy as well. Howard plays three members of a family – a contemporary young woman, her mother and her grandmother. After the granddaughter introduces them all and offers her bemused and mildly critical views of the other two, we get to see them for ourselves. Grandma turns out to be indeed the bitter old soak her granddaughter remembers, but she was young more than once, and her favourite memories are of seducing all her teenage daughter’s boyfriends. That daughter unsurprisingly developed a cynicism about the whole business of sex, which with a kind of logic took her into the sex business as an almost-nude model. And when we get back to granddaughter we discover she has the most unconventional – one might say weirdest – attitude toward sex of all, which I’ll merely allude to by saying that the play’s title has something to do with the way she catalogues her many, many lovers. It’s a slight piece, but one full enough of surprises to keep you always alert and entertained, with the added pleasure of watching Kaitlin Howard’s expressive range as an actress.  Gerald Berkowitz