seven methods of killing kylie jenner: these women slay
19 May 2024 - Photos by Dahlia Katz

Playwright Jasmine Lee-Jones packs a lot of laughs, not all of them bitter, into seven methods of killing kylie jenner before it builds to a searing climax. Cleo (Dejah Dison-Green) and Kara (Jasmine Case) have been friends since grade school. Cleo is now working on her dissertation about the oppression of Black women in society and Kara, well the only information we get is that she is a lesbian. Cleo sees a tweet that states that "Kylie Jenner is the youngest self-made billionaire ever," and it fuels a rage that has been building for a long time. Cleo tweets her fantasy of killing the privileged born-rich white girl with the hashtag #kyliejennerifdead from her account @incognegro. While most sane individuals would agree that Kylie Jenner deserves to die, she does have her fans and a huge social media following. All hell breaks loose.

Kara wanders into the maelstrom and offers advice, contradictions and attempts to smooth the social media explosion. This leads the two into multiple discussions and explorations of the state of being a Black woman in contemporary society. If that sounds heavy, it occasionally is. But it is also hilarious as the women summon resources of resilience and wisecrack, playing off each other like slick song and dance vaudevillians. Cleo paints a dismal and frightening portrait of her life, contrasting it with Kara's case of "lightie-itis" and "big clit energy." Cleo herself is suffering from "dick withdrawl syndrome" thanks to a break-up and there is quick but incisive illustration of how Black men are fetishized and Black women are demonized. It doesn't end there. The pair have a complicated past and old wounds are opened and invectively salted. The lesbianism is more than a red herring, but it is also inconsequential, until Kylie's social media mob begins digging into Cleo's past and finds old tweets. The demonization is to continue.

Cleo's methods of killing Kylie Jenner are superficially mundane but with puns and metaphor she expands them into comic genius. However Jenner is to be dispatched, the weapon or method is tied directly to the sins of the capitalist and white ruling class. The glee with which Dixon-Green describes, graphically, what she wants to see happen to Jenner is chilling and totally relatable. And laugh out loud funny. Until the laugh sticks in your throat. Dixon-Green is a dynamo, riding a roller coaster of emotional states and spitting each one out with precise abandon. She flounces, struts, dances, rants and raves, and is so vulnerable that you want to fix the system. Virgilia Griffith (Queen Goneril, King Lear, Iphigenia and the Furies, Harlem Duet, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, The Wedding Party, They Say He Fell) is credited as a "movement consultant," and Dixon-Green and Case are constantly in motion. So much so that seven methods of killing kylie jenner often feels like a spoken word musical. Case doesn't just react to Cleo, she also plays numerous other characters making the changes with quicksilver grace. She is a vivid contrast but the bond of sisterhood over-rules all transgressions and spats.

With the addition of multiple TV screens mimicking the overwhelming onslaught that is social media, seven methods of killing kylie jenner could be confusing and overwhelming itself. This is compounded by the verbal tsunami of slang and abbreviations, OMG but I'm JS that frequently I said WTF. But NVM, it is true to the characters and it gives the dialogue a propulsive rhythm that moves as quickly as the ideas bursting off the stage. Director Jay Northcott helps clarify with visuals and smart lighting (Christopher-Elizabeth) and staging. When Cleo says, "I know you can keep up with the Kardashians but can you keep up with me?", that is the only moment I felt any empathy for Jenner. A tiny detail in the costuming (Des'ree Gray) provides a neon clue for where the multiple threads are going, how it will all tie together. Cleo invokes Saartjie, a historical horror show of colonialism and sexism, and gives a short but devastating account of Saartjie's life and death before making it a harbinger, a reflection of Cleo's own. Of every Black woman's. Kara chimes in, breaking the fourth wall, and the land acknowledgment is invoked to an audience now shaken to their core. The only regret one has afterwards is that Jenner doesn't show up. Because these women slay and they have methods.