Hopeless is a solo production, written and performed by Leyla Josephine. The beginning started off with overwhelming music that was reflective of tragic love lives, sung by Adele and Sam Smith. Leyla was presented mid stage with a huge, snuggly duvet over her head in bed; which conveyed how bed at times is our dwelling place to escape from the world as well as a nest to rest our minds when we’ve exhausted ourselves and have no more energy to persevere.
Hopeless contained compelling, empowering and outspoken, spoken word performed by Leyla that drastically tackled political and social aspects demoralising our system, persona, mind-sets and attitude in our everyday lives to create change and aspire our everyday life choices. The hysterical elements were when Leyla would use breaking the fourth wall techniques, as it instantly helped form a relaxing atmosphere and a connection to her character as she wore no makeup, was shameless about voicing her opinion and shared personal experiences she encountered during her stay at a children’s refugee camp.
Hopeless is a stimulating production, as Leyla takes you on an epic emotional rollercoaster of deep, thought provoking content in poetical form of the global dysfunctions that surround us but we may act oblivious to; to avoid discussion due to us feeling helpless or hopeless to concern ourselves if the problem isn’t an inflicting issue within our community.
Leyla from the start of the play states that it’s not an ordinary play the audience has come to watch but a self-awareness piece, with realisation of how feeling hopeless can affect our consciousness and she artistically paints a vivid description to why humanity does feel hopeless; breaking down the counterparts of climate change, why disasters can be sexy, how the news at times forgets the human parts, emptiness in bank balances, expression of the ‘big boys’ highlighting the rich get richer and poor gets poorer concept and metaphorically referring to how lives can feel like the sinking of the titanic when life gets too tough!
Hopeless is an eye-opening, convicting and rational play; which presents healing of the mind and inspiring words during her spoken word pieces, an enlightening, factual performance.
Tanica Psalmist