MU Drama’s One Acts Showcase in Review: “Welcome to New York”

“Chloe gets her dream job offer and must move to New York. Her best friend Charlie gets jealous. Both start to loathe each other and have a messy friendship breakup. Will they make up when Chloe goes to New York, or are they going to move on without each other?” 

Welcome to New York’s most remarkable trait is its embrace of connectivity in the modern world as a foundational premise. Not only does it feature Chloe (Alanna Purcell) getting a job overseas, but its synopsis acknowledges that her friendship with Charlie (Alannah Martin) can be resolved from overseas. This is the direction the play’s resolution ultimately takes, showing a wholehearted embrace of the post-smartphone world.

This is slightly at odds with the play’s fascination with New York as a place. More specifically, it is Chloe’s fascination, which is not wholly substantiated once she arrives. Unsurprisingly, the city is far more affronting than expected: her new apartment’s window faces a wall, and her job is a far sight less prestigious than she imagined. Yet even this disappointment is part of the fetishistic charm endowed upon New York in movies released and set around the 2000s, the city’s urban griminess and the life one makes for oneself within it forming part of its appeal. For a play so contingent on the type of communication social media enables, it instead focuses on an otherworldly New York that predates social media, decidedly hauntological in the early-2000s Lady Bird-esque sheen on the city.

Another cog in the works complicating this premise is the depiction of Charlie and Chloe’s relationship. The play all but opens with Chloe getting hired at a New York firm, leaving Charlie dejected at the prospect of losing their best friend. They overhear Chloe complaining on the phone about this, wondering why Charlie cannot simply be happy for her. This leads to an argument followed by a full-scale separation. The problem here is that little is done to establish that the pair as best friends in the first place; subsequently, most of the play until the resolution has them decidedly not being friends at all. As a result, the script must constantly re-emphasise their oppositional personalities of Chloe and Charlie with the assumption that opposites attract being the sole indicator that a friendship could exist between them.  

Chloe can almost robotically answer interview questions, whereas Charlie is struggling to find a job; Chloe has a greater sense of entitlement than Charlie, resulting in her being slightly less empathetic. However, these opposing traits do more to open the gulf between the pair, being raised in the argument between them. The cast frequently readdresses the argument as the plot demands it, further mystifying whether Charlie and Chloe ever liked each other, and why they didn’t end their friendship sooner.

That being said, the disdain between the characters is as effective as it is largely due to the sharpness of the performances. One can easily and thoroughly believe that Martin’s Charlie feels emotions deeply, yet requires encouragement to show even a sliver of a given feeling. Purcell excels as a volatile, but ultimately quite detached rich kid in parallel. Sarah Heffernan portrays Chloe’s mother and plays to this trait brilliantly, punctuating the central conflict with in little jibes and colder asides to push her daughter to some sort of recognition of the other. Sahla Mahenasheen as the elusive ‘Stranger’ does this to an equally vivid effect in a chance encounter scene.  

Adversely, Tom Breathnach hams it up as Chloe’s father, his saccharine affection for his daughter discernibly feeding into her sense of entitlement. Breathnach also double-roles as a café owner who speaks a thousand words through his facial expressions. There’s a brilliant moment where he quietly, shyly reacts to Charlie insulting him on a phone call and his face contorts to show a range of comical sorrow. Breathnach recently won the Best Supporting Actor accolade at the Drama Society’s One Acts Awards (alongside Oscar Verdoire for Passive Observers).

The café itself is a bizarrely empathetic point of contention within the play. Chloe applies for a job there on Charlie’s behalf, much to their justified ire given how much of an overstep it is, and the assumptions Chloe must make about Charlie to do so. While the play acknowledges this conflict through Charlie’s response, it simultaneously reiterates that Chloe’s actions stem from care. This, however, is not particularly addressed in the moment when Chloe tells Charlie about the café job; there’s no slightly oblivious line to the effect of “I’m doing this because I want to see you succeed,” for instance. This moment stood out, as I have seen friends end relationships over strikingly similar circumstances. Beyond the dissonance that comes about from Chloe going to New York, this point of conflict felt underdeveloped, but deeply earnest.

Smock Alley’s Boys’ School stage, with its exposed masonry, proved an ideal setting for locations such as a modern café, or a dour Manhattan apartment. Despite the brickwork’s presence, it was surprisingly never referred to as the wall obscuring the view from Chloe’s window. Nevertheless, the stage lent itself well to the play’s moments of urban dinginess, perhaps moreso than any other production staged night.

Caught between times and perhaps its storytelling priorities, Welcome to New York is elevated by its cast, its understanding of transnational friendships, and the glimmers pointing to an even richer understanding of friendships under strain. 

With thanks again to Cyan Doyle, Craig Doyle and the Drama Society committee for their continuous generosity; to Teagan Scott for providing production info; and always to copy editor Jade Hannon for collaboration and companionship at the showcase.