Review: Split Ends at The Loading Dock Theatre, Qtopia Sydney

Review by Kate Gaul

Split Ends is a confessional monologue inspired by the performer’s own journey through OCD, coercive control, and the abuse of power. Split Ends arrives in Sydney with an impressive trail of Fringe acclaim, but in performance proves more self-regarding than its reputation might suggest. Written and performed by Claudia Shnier, the solo work hinges on an extended metaphor: split ends as a marker of damage that replicates even as it is managed. It is a clear and serviceable idea, though one that the production leans on heavily rather than allowing to develop complexity. 

Shnier performs as herself, narrating an escalating fixation on hair, control, and a romantic relationship with an actual Vacuum. The Vacuum sheds, disappears, reappears, professes love, withdraws it, lies, and sheds again. As allegory for coercive control and emotional dependency, the structure is obvious, if effective. What is less effective is the insistence with which the parallel is reinforced. The show rarely risks understatement.

As a performer, Shnier is capable and assured. She commands attention, shifts easily between humour and disclosure, and understands the rhythms of solo performance. Audience engagement is rarely in doubt. However, this assurance also contributes to the work’s principal weakness: a lack of editorial restraint. The piece often feels less shaped than accumulated, as though confidence in the material has displaced the need for selection.

This is most evident in the use of video. Projected conversations with Shnier’s alter ego, alongside footage of rehearsals and the work’s own development, contribute little beyond reiteration. Rather than complicating the themes of self-surveillance and control, these sequences slow the pace and flatten the dramatic tension. The audience is shown the process instead of being invited to interrogate its implications.

Repetition is central to Split Ends, and physically it is deployed with some success. The repeated acts of cutting, plucking, and vacuuming generate a tangible sense of compulsion. Dramaturgically, however, the repetition becomes blunt. Insights are revisited without being meaningfully advanced, and the accumulation of explanation begins to dilute the impact of what might otherwise be sharper observations.

The show is strongest when it resists the urge to clarify itself. In moments where Shnier allows contradiction to stand - where affection and harm coexist without commentary - the work briefly achieves a more resonant ambiguity. These passages suggest a leaner, more disciplined version of the piece that trusts its audience to do some of the work.

While Split Ends addresses significant themes - coercive control, self-regulation, and the endurance of damaging attachments - it does so with a surfeit of material. The critical language that has followed the production tends toward hyperbole. The work is thoughtful and well-intentioned, but not especially rigorous.

In the end, Split Edsz would benefit from a more exacting approach to its own metaphor. Like the split ends it invokes, the material continues to divide rather than resolve. A sharper cut might reveal a stronger core.

Image Supplied