★★★
A single chair manned by cardboard cutouts of The Undertaker and Bret Hart makes up the stage – or more appropriately, the ring – for Tegan Verheul’s autobiographical debut Chokeslam. Verheul bounds out to an upbeat tune, hyping up the crowd just like a pro wrestler. This, she explains, is the limit to her wrestling talents: once, her boyfriend attempted to demonstrate a move on her and she cried. She describes him as a wrestling superfan and while she was originally uninterested, one day a switch flicked and she became obsessed.
You’d be forgiven for thinking Chokeslam is simply a show about wrestling, as Verheul name-drops professional wrestlers and rapidly hurls jargon at the audience during the first half. While she has the wrestling fans eating out the palm of her hand, those with little knowledge of the sport – such as myself- are left confused and struggling to follow the plot. Verheul does provide flashcards to explain key terms, but these don’t even begin to cover the vast number of moves and wrestlers she attempts to describe. However, Chokeslam hits its stride in the second half, where the plot gains more structure. Verheul delicately weaves stories about her divorce with snippets of wrestling history that are both entertaining and informative. These include the Undertaker and Mankind’s iconic Hell in a Cell fight and how Chyna redefined women’s wrestling, moving it away from matches where they wore skimpy bikinis, and to feats of strength and skill that rival the men.
On the other hand, she discusses her divorce with earnest vulnerability. Due to the overlapping friendship groups, she feels incredibly lonely as she misses out on the huge parties they all took turns hosting every time there was a big WWE match. She is unflinchingly honest as she explains that her husband did not meet her needs and made her feel unattractive, which led her to seek attention from one of her favourite wrestlers, and ultimately have an affair. While openly admitting it was wrong of her to do this, she does not plead forgiveness from the audience, but instead, she hopes that performing the show will help her to forgive herself for staying in the marriage for as long as she did. While it’s perhaps not the conclusion you’d think she would land at, it does send an empowering message all the same that you should never shrink yourself to make someone else happy.
Overall, Chokeslam is not a bad performance at all. Verheul is a skilled storyteller and performer, and she has the majority of the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. If she wrote a play about women’s wrestling – which she states she should – I would definitely watch it. Chokeslam is certainly a must-see for wrestling fans, and if the plotline was a little stronger in the first half, it would be a must-see for all. It is not just a wrestling show, but rather a tale of morality, heartbreak and forgiveness.
Chokeslam will be performed at Assembly George Square – The Crate at 5:50pm until 25 August as part of Edinburgh Fringe 2024.
Words by Ellen Leslie
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