Under the hot lights, Pollie does not arrive so much as she is presented: assembled in parts, exaggerated, impossible to ignore. The audience shifts as Issy Knowles turns, offering not just a body but a question: what, exactly, have you come here to see?

At SoHo Playhouse, What If They Ate the Baby—the Fringe First–winning clown comedy by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland—turns 1950s housewife banter into a surreal, darkly funny exploration of McCarthyism, gender politics, and the unsettling power of physical storytelling.