I’ll Eat You Last is a look at the eerie glitz of Hollywood through the eyes of legendary agent Sue Mengers. Essentially a 90-minute monologue, Miriam Margolyes’ performance as Mengers is incredible throughout. The attention to detail in her acting makes the larger-than-life character tangible and bombastic, leaving you hanging on every word.
A gorgeous set and subtly glamorous lighting add lustre and ostentatious isolation. John Logan’s writing is raucous, imbuing the sassy bon vivant with sage clarity. Mengers is a caricature of the New Hollywood chic, both embodying and unabashedly deriding the posturing, saccharin demeanour emblematic of the cellulose romanticism.
Cigarette-demolishing, liquor-swilling, joint-toting Mengers is a dynamo of the movie industry, a “twinkly” star, as she would put it. Yet she is in decline, much like the fading vision of Hollywood she represents. Through Mengers’ journey we see that the industry to which she has dedicated her life has begun to leave her behind, yet the parting isn’t so much bittersweet as incendiary.
Gossip is the “lubricant of Hollywood” and Mengers is more than happy to spill the beans. I’ll Eat You Last, Menger’s hypothetical title for a cannibal love story, is the heart of the Hollywood ethos, and this morsel is more than appetising.
[RATING]
MTC, Arts Centre to 20 Dec.
