“A single brilliant red bentwood chair sits centre stage. Jayne Tuttle descends the stairs ... at first just a little uncertain – she’s not her yet; she’s unformed, she’s Betty Blue burning down buildings ...

From her first hapless arrival in Paris lugging a backpack, to her years at Lecoq Theatre School, to a very French love affair, to the death of her beloved mother – and to an horrific injury, Tuttle vividly brings to life those transforming events and the people she meets. And not just with words: her time at Lecoq was not wasted. Using mime, she makes us see her heavy backpack, the nasty woman in the boulangerie, her classroom at Lecoq where she yearns for what amounts to high praise, ‘Pas mal.’ We see the dream lover boyfriend and his sceptical chain-smoking mother – a superb, economic impersonation that gives us the woman in a second. She creates her parents with two or three precisely chosen details. And then there are her nightmares …

Paris or Die is often funny but it doesn’t set out to be funny. It’s not rhapsodic or a travel story. Paris or Die is honest and is essentially about transformation – or, more prosaically, growing up. ”

“A resounding success … Tuttle conjures up characters both interesting in the abstract and loved in the concrete. The directorial decisions are equally exciting. With a single chair, the show moves us through settings that are alive with details that exist only in our minds. (More than) simply watching a person tell a story, “Paris or Die” makes you feel like you’ve taken a journey instead.”