How to Date
Stephanie McNeil
Directed by Isabel Steuble-Johnson
Jack Studio, part of SEFest 2025
Star rating: 3.5
It’s good to see this rather uplifting play revived after its three performances at Collective Theatre earlier this year.
It tells the story of two rather different young women in their early twenties trying to pick their way through work and social life in London. It’s about friendship, relationships, insecurity, ambition – and danger. The darkly lit opening scene presents Helin Ekin’s distraught character, Clarissa, being given the all clear after a chlamydia test but told that she’s in the early stages of pregnancy. She is horrified and immediately demands an abortion, thus setting the scene for a piece which is often funny while making it clear that this isn’t all about laughter. Structurally it flashes back to Clarissa’s early friendship with Emily (Stephanie McNeil, who also wrote the play) and then moves towards the unwanted pregnancy at about the half way point.
I really liked the naturalistic dialogue as Emily, who’s done a drama degree and dreams of starring on Netflix, works in a coffee shop and jauntily serves pretend drinks to front row audience members. Clarissa, meanwhile, a trained accountant, loses her internship by being too sassy at work and turns to drink, one-night stands and casual jobs – her self esteem at rock bottom.
Both women are strong actors but an especial word of praise to Danny Jeffs and Seyi Ogunniyi, who between them, play all the men who pass through the women’s lives at work or in clubs and pubs. Jeffs has a richly versatile range of voices and attitudes whether he’s the chauvinist of whom Clarissa falls foul at work or the fellow barista who chums up with Emily. Ogunniyi gives us Emily’s wettish but decent boyfriend and then morphs into Clarrissa’s anything-but-decent Rushane, somehow creating an illusion of being twice the size with mere body language. Bravo for character acting! Both men adeptly play a whole string of other roles too.
Isabel Steuble-Johnson’s direction makes good use of the Jack’s limited playing space with Clarissa’s messy room, evoked by a bench, a throw or two and a lot of mess at stage right. The set (designed by Isabella Sarmiento Abadia) also uses a 1970’s tea trolley positioned stage left which variously, and rather neatly, connotes the coffee shop, club bars and drinks at home.
At its heart this is an entertaining, compelling, play about young women finding the confidence to live the independent lives they want to without being unhealthily dependent on relationships with men for self-validation. It’s a worthwhile message.
