Orlando Fringe 2023 reviews: ‘Thank You, Ex’

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I’m not an elder millennial female, but I do remember enough about being a teenager in the 1990s to still recognize an Avril Lavigne tune from its intro, so I guess that means I’m at least half-qualified to review this funny, but frustrating look at romance and rejection by Kelly Taylor and Melly Magrath. Taylor plays boy-crazy Violet, a young woman whose “hot to crazy ratio” is admittedly out of whack. Her hyperactive, helium-voiced delivery is as intense as her purple hair and glittering platform boots, as she monologues about crushing on a Pokemon card-collecting chapstick-eater, or flirting with the coulrophobic boy next door through Mario Kart.

Violet eventually finds the self-confidence to reject everything toxic (except Britney’s album) and embrace empowerment, but the play has few answers to its repeated query of why women allow themselves to become obsessed with unworthy men. Nostalgic pop-culture reference transported me back to the era of My So Called Life and Alanis Morissette CDs, and there are loads of clever, catty one-liners. But director Madelaine Rose hasn’t given the show enough dramatic momentum, relying on too-frequent video clips (featuring Taylor in a feminist Masterpiece Theater parody) that merely slow the pace and disrupt Taylor’s timing, without adding much to the narrative. She’s electric to watch all on her own, without any unnecessary multimedia mishegas.