This ‘one woman musical’ from sickeningly youthful ‘Daily Show’ writer Sophie Zucker is an extremely entertaining bit of late-night fun.
It also feels a bit hidebound by look-at-me, main character energy tropes as it details a - hopefully fictionalised! - version of Zucker’s narcissistic, approach to family funerals. Long story short, at one such solemn occasion she encounters her Israeli second cousin Yoni, who she hasn’t seen since childhood, and despite her having a boyfriend and him being related to her… she develops a serious crush.
Zucker is a likeable performer and a tremendous songwriter – I’m ashamed to say it’s taken me a week to write this one up, and I still have some of the bouncy, synthy songs in my head, especially the strident ‘Yoni Got Hot’.
She also carries off a wilfully awful costume change with total conviction, and on the night I saw it, totally styled out a 20-minute fire alarm interruption (we moved to a different room in the end).
But I guess in the end I found her character’s narcissism a bit glossy and sanitised. So much of the Fringe is based around monstrous alter-egos doing inappropriate things that ‘…Sucks Face’ feels only mildly transgressive. There is some very funny stuff about Jewish-American identity and how Zucker’s character has let horniness blind her to the obvious yawning cultural and political gulf betwixt her and Yoni. But on the whole, Zucker’s character is basically a medium-grade narcissist with some cracking songs, not a classic comic creation. She’s clever and funny and tuneful and clearly extremely talented, but I think her magnum opus is yet to come.