“It is engaging but teasing. Like an extended trailer. Or rather a pilot for a television drama series”
“I’m not always that easy to love” Kate explains to her girlfriend Liv. She then spends the next ninety minutes proving her point. If it stretches our patience, think what it is like for the three characters in “The Beach House”, whose entangled lives untangle before us over the course of a year or so. A year in which Kate gives birth to their baby daughter (the conception of which remains a mystery) after the couple move into a crumbling cottage by the sea. Kate’s sister, Jenny, comes and goes, upsetting the already precarious balance each time she arrives, and often more so when she leaves.
Many staple themes are touched upon in Jo Harper’s episodic play, that are unveiled in a series of snapshots. Short scenes. Vignettes of a particular moment in time. Like looking through a stranger’s photo album. We see the surface, and then rely on our imaginations to create the back story. Dramatically that is a blessing, but a burden for the performers who have little time to convince us of their complex characterisation. And they don’t always manage this in the time they have. But what they do have, in abundance, is the ability to draw you into the moment and offer more than a hint of what is going on. The cracks appear in the relationships like the leaks that spring in the roof of their rundown home.
Kathryn Bond is the pragmatic, uptight career woman. Bond cleverly plays the bully with a tender lack of self-awareness who can surprisingly elicit sympathy. The issue of post-natal depression is brushed aside and swept under her façade of impatience and overreaction. Apparently Kate has always been the controlling type, according to free spirited, little sister Jenny. Gemma Barnett has many layers through which to make her character’s voice heard but, despite her strong charisma and very watchable presence, the message becomes muffled. Gemma Lawrence’s Liv has the most light and shade. A blocked songwriter, she depends on Kate financially and emotionally. Lawrence convincingly portrays a divided soul. We marvel at her tolerance, and understand and excuse her indiscretions.
There is a lot going on here. All three characters are both culprits and victims. They are grappling with some hefty issues. Coercion, emotional abuse, infidelity, motherhood, sisterhood, abortion, betrayal, desire. It could be a whirlwind, but it is more fragile than that. Delivered gently, the real tensions are like a dark cloud on the horizon, and the performances are treading some way from the precipice.
Set in the round, Bethany Pitts staging is nevertheless starkly honest, reflected in Cara Evans’ sparse setting. The lens focuses on a single trunk centre stage, a Pandora’s Box – on which the lid is never fully lifted. A baby monitor relays some offstage dialogue, but again we expect more of a reveal from this technique. It is engaging but teasing. Like an extended trailer. Or rather a pilot for a television drama series. Now there’s an idea. The performances certainly do leave us wanting to know more. And what happens next. And what happened before. “Always leave them wanting more” they say. A fundamental rule that this company haven’t breached in “The Beach House”.
“the ending is strong enough that the audience’s slight loss of attention is whipped back into submission”
Alice and Charlie have both found themselves at their first AA meeting. Lingering by the coffee table, avoiding taking their seats, Alice persuades Charlie that he needs a drink for medicinal purposes, and off they run. This is the beginning of a tumultuous, toxic, hopelessly sincere love story. Or at least, that’s how one of them remembers it.
Scenes are presented as fact, later disputed or questioned, with no resolution; specific details and conversations repeat themselves in various parts of the story, and the audience experiences the desperate, failing attempt to recall things as they happened. It reminds me of Florian Zeller’s The Father, where we experience dementia first-hand, except in this case, neither witness is reliable, nor does it really matter. The fact is they love each other.
Anisha Fields’ design appears, at first, almost non-existent: stackable chairs line two sides of the stage, and that’s about it. It’s possible that’s just how the auditorium looked pre-rehearsals. After a while, though, despite their avoidance of AA, the chairs seem to suggest that the whole play is taking place at a meeting, someone trying to set the record straight, finally. Alice is dressed like Penny Lane from Almost Famous, in a fitted Afghan coat, large sunglasses, and a little slip dress. The comparison is perfect: Alice has performed as herself for so long she’s become the performance, and what appears false initially is actually just who she is now. She seems so ridiculous on first meeting that I’m worried Rebecca Humphries just isn’t very good, or the script has let her down. But the opposite is true: her façade is ridiculous, but her insecurities bubble just under the surface.
Alex Austin’s Charlie is scrappy and dopey and his near lack of costume- baggy top and jeans- reflects that. He’s the antithesis of Alice, always himself, always honest about how he feels. Austin appears as a nervous puppy, so ready to be loved, and it’s completely endearing and, ultimately, heart breaking.
Sound designer Holly Khan and lighting designer Christopher Nairne do a lot of the heavy lifting: masses of reverb when they’re in a church, a thudding heartbeat timed so perfectly with the on-stage tension, you can’t recall when it started; sickly florescent tubes double as unflattering lighting at the AA meeting, and artful strobes, denoting the strange experience of time, and the eponymous blackouts.
There is no dead space in this script, but writer Joe White does have a problem on his hands. Because despite the fact that there are no scenes to cut, it’s too long. Ultimately it doesn’t matter; the ending is strong enough that the audience’s slight loss of attention is whipped back into submission. But the script is so nearly perfect, it’s a shame it’s not ever so slightly pacier.
