REVIEW: seven methods of killing kylie jenner is vital and raw
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
How would you kill Kylie Jenner?
Would you drain the socialite of her contacts, her best friends with money to burn and gossip to spill? Or would you cut her open and let her bleed the billions of dollars she’s made shilling cosmetics and other wares emblazoned with her name? Maybe you could burn her alive, using a juicy scandal as an accelerant, and watch paparazzi feast on the ashes of the youngest Jenner sibling.
Jenner is both a symptom of and contributor to late-stage capitalism, sister to supermodel Kendall and half-sister to celebutantes Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney Kardashian. Jenner was named a self-made billionaire in 2019 — an accolade many found problematic due to the hordes of generational wealth she used to launch her various businesses — and she’s been the subject of tabloid fodder since her early childhood. Currently, she’s best known for maybe dating Timothée Chalamet — when I was in high school, it was for her “lip kits,” overpriced makeup sets that included a liquid lipstick and lipliner, which the consumer was expected to use to overline their lips in the hopes of making them look bigger.
And that there’s the rub: Jenner, who is white, has a history of appropriating elements of Black beauty for her own gain, even as those traits have long been wielded against Black women for deviating from the thin lips and slim builds of the Western beauty standard. When Jenner sports an overlined lip, it’s trendy; when a Black woman wears her lips naturally, in all their fullness, it’s vulgar. When Jenner or her sisters sport a perfectly toned, juicy ass, it’s the epitome of high fashion; when Black women do the same, it’s an affront.
In Jasmine Lee-Jones’ seven methods of killing kylie jenner, produced by Obsidian Theatre in association with Crow’s, two young Black women, Kara (Jasmine Case) and Cleo (Déjah Dixon-Green), grapple with Jenner and her place in the cultural zeitgeist. Written in 2019, the play already feels like a time capsule for pre-pandemic teendom — references to Internet memes of the day abound — and staged within the cosy Studio Theatre space at Crow’s, around a sleepover-ready bed littered with Squishmallow stuffed animals, the production is raw and electric, a perfect treatment of a play that will be deeply relatable to anyone who’s grown up under the shadow of the Kardashian-Jenner clan. Kara often percusses her speech with drags from a fruit-flavoured vape (which, yes, we can smell from the audience — it’s an intimate space) — it’s a smart choice from director Jay Northcott, who along with a talented roster of designers has brilliantly situated the play in dialogue with the claustrophobia of the internet.
Cleo drives the action of the play — she opens the play by tweeting about wanting to kill Jenner, which sparks a social media frenzy as digital gawkers attempt to work out who she is — and Dixon-Green is stunning in the role. Clad in a bandana-print pajama set and cropped hoodie (costumes by Des’ree Gray), she commands the small playing space, balancing the centuries-long disenfranchisement of Black women with the changing-by-the-minute lingo of the digital sphere. Both Cleo and Kara punctuate their speech with text-friendly initialisms: LOL, SMH, LMAO, et cetera. It’s a quirk of the play that makes it feel divided between a rapid text exchange and an in-person hangout session — both Dixon-Green and Case nimbly navigate the lingo, incorporating it into their characters rather than letting the jumbles of letters interfere with their pacing.
Case’s Kara clings to the edges of Cleo’s bedroom, speaking less and bottling up the anger that’s chipped away at her since early youth. Case offers a superb performance, with the same richly animated face that made her so easy to watch in YPT’s Truth earlier this season, and by the play’s climax, she allows repressed emotions to bubble to the surface in a tender moment of coming-of-age that’s heartbreaking to watch. Together, Case and Dixon-Green are magic, an excellent duo who are as believable as best friends as they are adversaries. Lee-Jones has written a smart, searing play, with more to it than the Kylie Jenner of it all — the work’s reflections on Sarah Baartman, a South African woman who was toured around Europe as a circus attraction in the 19th century, are biting and profound.
Nicholas Blais’ screen-filled set perfectly suits the content of the play, and offers dozens of surfaces for memes, tweets, and other sediments of internet culture to rest. Maddie Bautista’s sound design similarly evokes the anxiety of a world dominated by pings, beeps, and dings — it’s a fantastic soundscape I hope Dora jurors remember come awards time.
seven methods of killing kylie jenner is a slam dunk, a poignant meditation on Black womanhood, internet culture, and the cult of celebrity. I do wish the play had been fully rejigged to be set in Toronto — right now, small visual cues and a handful of throwaway references imply a Toronto setting, while the original play is set in the U.K. and features oodles of British slang like “innit” and “taking the piss” that sound a touch out of place in a North American accent — but this is a small complaint against an otherwise gorgeous production.
seven methods of killing kylie jenner runs until June 2 at Crow’s Theatre. Tickets are available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling is Intermission's former senior editor and the theatre reporter for the Globe and Mail. She likes British playwright Sarah Kane, most songs by Taylor Swift, and her cats, Fig and June. She was a 2024 fellow at the National Critics Institute in Waterford, CT.
LEARN MORE
iPhoto caption: Kayla Sakura Charchuk, Jay Leonard Juatco, Kimberly-Ann Truong, Jun Kung, and Raugi Yu in Cambodian Rock Band. Set design by Jung-Hye Kim, costume design by Stephanie Kong, lighting design by Itai Erdal. Photo by Moonrider Productions.
REVIEW: Cambodian Rock Band makes scintillating Canadian premiere at Vancouver’s Arts Club
Jumping back and forth through time, it weaves the story of a father-daughter relationship together with high-energy musical performances and meditations on the traumatic effects of the Cambodian genocide.
iPhoto caption: Photo of Tara Sky by Jeremy Mimnagh. Set design by Shannon Lea Doyle, costume design by Asa Benally, lighting design by Hailey Verbonac.
REVIEW: The Born-Again Crow is an ardent ode to unproductivity
Director Jessica Carmichael’s Toronto premiere production trucks along with the passionate force of an early-2000s emo rock hit, imbuing this systemic critique with rousing, playful life.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Kendra Epik.
REVIEW: House + Body’s Measure for Measure weds the beautiful with the troubling
House + Body provides few answers about how to resist (or further, dismantle) a corrupt government. But layered portrayals of the play’s central characters convey the emotional stakes of a system that allows for egregious abuses of power.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Red Snow Collective’s Carried by the River is still finding its flow
Playing in the Tarragon Theatre Extraspace, Carried by the River delivers visually striking images and impressive choreography but struggles to find emotional depth and cohesion.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Outside the March’s Performance Review is claustrophobic for all the right reasons
It’s up close and personal, with lots of eye contact and sometimes only inches of distance between playwright-performer Rosamund Small and the audience.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: Against a bloody backdrop, Trident Moon pays homage to the power of resilience
Playing at Crow’s Theatre and set during the 1947 partition of India, the intense fictionalized drama offers a graceful depiction of several women’s high-stakes struggle to resist.
iPhoto caption: Photo by Aisling Murphy.
In the darkest months of Yukon winter, it’s all about the Sun Room
I’m here for a week in January as a guest of Nakai Theatre, a hub for theatrical experimentation and outside-the-box programming in Canada’s westernmost territory.
Armchairs, tattoos, and an online theatre magazine
When I started at Intermission, my world was limited to the confines of an armchair. Arts journalism was a high it felt dangerously fruitless to chase. The life stretched ahead of me was amorphous and frightening, a chasm filled with hand sanitizer and immigration concerns. It was worth crying over a spilled kombucha and scrubbing at the stain.
iPhoto caption: Liz Appel headshot courtesy of Liz Appel.
Five questions with Wights playwright Liz Appel
Intermission spoke with Appel over email for a brief Q&A about Wights, now playing at Crow’s Theatre until February 9.
Call for applications: Publishing and editorial assistant
Intermission Magazine is seeking a dynamic and collaborative individual to join our team.
iPhoto caption: What Writing Can Do: The 2025 Musical Theatre Critics Lab
Announcing What Writing Can Do: The 2025 Musical Theatre Critics Lab
What Writing Can Do is timed to coincide with the Grand and Theatre Aquarius’ co-production of Waitress, which will serve as a jumping-off point for discussions throughout the Lab.
iPhoto caption: A Christmas Story production still by Dahlia Katz.
REVIEW: A Christmas Story feels fresh at Theatre Aquarius
If you want to catch A Christmas Story before it closes, good luck — the show is close to sold out, and with the talent on that stage, it’s not hard to see why.
Comments