←Recommendations of A Godawful Small Affair

This play flows very much how time flowed during the pandemic lockdowns. Disjointed, dreamy. Where even the things we loved and looked forward to at home became routine and mundane. But then there is the magic of connection. Of breaking down walls and finding the magic beyond the walls and locking the magic back in again with you. A poetic, lyrical, queer dreamscape.

Might I say, I am speechless. A GODAWFUL SMALL AFFAIR is just what the world needs. Is this play a dream? Is this real life? What is this life, I am living in? Hayley takes the Covid times and relives them in a piece that is so lively, it makes me feel like I am a BOWIE himself; just watching. Watching everything unfold. And the writing style...What the — it's simple and straightforward, yet gripping and mythical.
I aspire to be you. Prolific. Masterful. Perfection.

Art is where we go to escape and where we go to find ourselves, our worlds, our times, and the strange ways we perceive reality. Many of us need it to survive. And it brings us together. It really is a magical, spatial mysticism. And, if you're a sexual person, the same can be said of sex. It's a connection. It's love. It's the passing of time. It's a way to find safety in the cold grasps of life. St. James takes us through the crippling loneliness of Covid times but shows us beauty. There's nothing godawful about this show.

As a writer, I worried constantly that the pandemic/isolation would stifle my creativity and dry up my imagination. In this case the writer couldn't have been further from that. The piece is a beautiful and colourful story with wonderfully crafted characters and I salute the writer for having created this world despite all that is going on around us!

A gorgeously gay and curiously queer work. Realistic, nuanced queer folks in realistic, nuanced queer relationships, plus the alien angel ghost of David Bowie. What more could you ask for? If you've had trouble finding yourself in media, this may well be the piece for you.

The world of this play is queer and electric. with a vivid analysis of what it means to be alone even in the presence of others. Once again there is a sense of magic in St. James' work, and we are presented characters who have a pulse that feels matched to one's own. There is grief, there is joy, there is longing, all within the confines of two apartments. This creates a thoughtful sense of remembrance for the early days of the pandemic, and offers them in a way that isn't dramatic or romanticized, but just is. Beautiful.

Hayley St. James has written perhaps the only pandemic-related play I would actually look forward to seeing onstage. The ethereal presence of Ziggy Stardust is definitely a factor, but also the willingness to honor the awkwardness, tedium, and yearning of COVID cohabitation and socially-distanced solitude – St. James knows it’s all worthwhile. What a beautiful voice – and what a beautiful thing, to have the Starman guide these three lovable, loving characters through a year of darkness and disgrace to find some joy.

St. James’ story is one of loss and longing, and the walls both real and imagined that separate us from our loved ones. What of the new lovers who have been trapped together? And those who have been quarantined alone? This is a non-binary love triangle that celebrates the joy of coupling, but also the ennui of sameness. Google the phrase “time passes so strangely these days.” It is a refrain in this script, but also the subconscious mantra for our time. St. James work is eloquent, it's ecstatic, it truly is the freakiest show.

From the first pages of this play, the need, the isolation, the loneliness, is palpable. Through humor and very touching humanity, St. James uses their singular perspective to look at universal feelings through these incredibly specific (and, might I add, delightful) characters. Their use of magical realism creates something tangible out of the uncertainty we all felt at the beginning of the pandemic, and each character's particular coping methods paint a portrait of what NYC was like inside while the news was showing us outside.

Holy cow, this play is intense, as well as being extremely relatable, especially while the pandemic still rages on in the U.S. Relationships fall apart, time moves unpredictably...I will say that I've now been spoiled and will be disappointed by the lack of alien/ghost/hallucinatory David Bowies in other plays. Once in-person performances can happen again, this is going to reach out and grab audiences with the realities of lockdown. Excellent play, highly recommended.