Bella Da Balle (Harley Peers), Drag Artiste Extraordinaire and self-proclaimed Queen of Sass, is a flamboyant character but also shallow—holding opinions on plays she has never read or seen and having scant interest in subjects which do not revolve around her. Yet Bella inspires tremendous loyalty from friend and flatmate, Donna Knight (Amy-Lou Harris), a jobbing actor working through gruelling auditions and educational sketches for children.
Bella is nonplussed by the arrival of Donna’s professional colleague Annie (author Laura J Harris) as she has plans for the evening which are, to put it mildly, obsessive and scary. Annie acts as a catalyst for a series of unlikely developments which push the friendship to the limit and bring a disturbing meaning to their names: Bella Donna.
Laura J Harris’s play Bella Donna feels like a work in progress. The various sections do not slot together in a convincing way. Bella’s superficial exterior, it turns out, conceals a darker personality along the lines of Stephen King’s Annie Wilkes or Baby Reindeer’s Martha, but there is no hint of such a development in the early scenes—discreet comments along the lines of, "you always get carried away" are absent. So, the plot twist, when it arrives, is a shock but not credible. Harley Peers opens the play parading around the stage in the manner of a grande dame graciously greeting her admirers, and you cannot help but wonder if such behaviour is in accord with her secret motivation.
It is hard to warm to the self-obsessed and selfish Bella, and, as a result, one struggles to understand her relationship with the other characters. She is close to a theatrical monster like Beverly from Abigail’s Party, yet somehow inspires both Donna and Annie to go to extraordinary lengths to save her from herself rather than run a mile away from her.
Bella Donna is intended as a light-hearted comedy that takes a surprising turn towards dark humour. But there simply are not enough jokes or witty dialogue to convince as a comedy, so any humour comes from the situations in which the characters find themselves. However, the slow pacing allows the audience time enough to ponder and conclude the situations are unlikely and, as the tone of the play never shifts towards sinister, the events do not form a credible dark scenario. The ending is murky, but one infers Donna has not learnt her lesson.
Bella Donna would benefit from revision to become a satisfactory comedy.