As life goes on, it is becoming clearer that society is becoming lonelier, mental health is on the downward track, and its affecting the young and the queer community in a disastrous way.

Sweet Beef, with their show, Crying Shame, aims to bring this epidemic to light, using verbatim interviews mixed in an unreal cabaret, where we are reminded that, while we may be suffering, we are not alone.

While this sounds intense and deep, there are elements of comedy within, in a little bit of a bittersweet way. The characters are all clowns of some sort, with clown-like names, make up and crossed cabaret/circus outfits. They start out engaging us as any cabaret show: we have the compare, the introduction to different acts, they interact with us like friends and welcomed guests… but as time ticks on, it becomes more unhinged, the characters break down, it all goes wrong. There’s this philosophical approach to the production, almost starting with “putting on a smile” to engage us, but pushing us away as soon as things become too much and too real – it resonates, if not ambiguously.

The characters are each fully formed and so when they break, it is very clear that their clown facade has disappeared. However, some moments of chaos were almost too chaotic. Each breakdown seems to draw the other characters out and it becomes a little overwhelming, with competing voices and faces engaging you. The compare continues to keep peace until they themselves break and we get this beautiful moment of their reflection, of a slower and calmer analysis of loneliness. If there were more peppering of this, it would feel more poignant and not at a high energy level that felt a little hard to keep up with.

Crying Shame is visually beautiful, with a socio-political approach that is needed since the pandemic and in an ever downward spiral in our mental health system. It is an important and clever production, but needed a occasional change of pace to allow us to sit in our thoughts on the topic.