Yes Yes Yes: Review

Every show has a message. Whether it’s a modern take on Shakespeare, an interpretive dance piece, or an absurdist one woman show about a sapient dog, there is something that the show - the director, the cast, the people behind the scenes - is trying to say.

I always try to avoid spoilers going into shows, but that doesn’t stop the sniffing little reviewer bloodhound in my brain from searching for the central little nugget of meaning in any given show. 

In Yes Yes Yes, directed by Eleanor Bishop and starring a whopping single cast member, the message really seems to be that there is so much about growing up which we do not talk about today. And, expanding upon this, the show leaves plenty of room for discussion about the many trials and tribulations that come with being a teenager when adulthood is looming on the horizon. 

Hannah Kelly, as the sole cast member, does an excellent job tying together several interviews with teenagers about the perils of growing up in the technology age, braced against Kelly’s own understanding of adulthood from her teenage experience. 

It is a very insightful show, though one of the few times where going in blind might have been to my detriment, as the one-woman-show turned informational documentary turned open-mic speech kept throwing me for a loop when I asked myself “what is this show’s format?”

The medium is the message, and the message got a bit blurred in this one as I tried to parse fact from fiction and theatre from speech. 

That doesn’t mean I left the theatre unsatisfied, however, and indeed this show had me reflecting on my own experiences with growing up in a way I truly never had before. It was a commendable job from everyone involved, and it was gratifying to see people younger than me in the audience, hopefully taking away some powerful lessons from this multi-faceted take on young adulthood. 

3 Stars