“the cast are competent all round, though there are no stand out performances”
Obsession is a word that’s thrown around by many of us on a daily basis. People are obsessed with celebrities and fashion trends and TV programmes – Sean, for his part, is obsessed with ‘Game of Thrones’. But Ivy’s obsessions are different. Ivy has OCD and it’s spiralling out of control. She doesn’t cellophane the surfaces, but she can’t take the rubbish out or touch someone else’s hand or stand on the pavement cracks. Now it’s affecting her job and her relationship.
‘Obsession’ is an eye opening investigation into living with OCD, written by Kate Marston who also takes the central role of Ivy. Jim’s character, a personal trainer who is terrified of his own wife, lends a light comic relief particularly to the latter portion of the piece, though Chris Udoh could afford to bring out this comedy a little more in his delivery. Sophie Winter-King plays the real and imagined ‘other woman’ and does so with ease. Chris Royle’s Sean is particularly strong, likeable and easy, until the moment that he isn’t. Overall, the cast are competent all round, though there are no stand out performances.
Sarah Mercadé’s design is simple but effective within the space, a slanting white bench framed by strips of light. The piece itself strikes a really lovely balance between establishing Ivy and Sean’s relationship, clear moments of fun and warmth between them, as well as documenting its breakdown. Sean’s journey seems less nuanced, less gradual than Ivy’s, and more development of his trajectory would help to support Ivy’s own narrative. The piece isn’t hugely formally inventive, following a similar arch to many plays I have seen approaching mental health issues. However it does do it better than many I have seen, and its goal is achieved – I leave with a considerably greater awareness of OCD, the way it can manifest itself and how best to support it.
This is a well balanced, thought provoking piece that sheds some much needed light on the impact of living with OCD.
“an astute and interesting piece of theatre exploring issues that are unique to this place and time”
Succinctly drawing together the lives and problems of five Londoners, Gaps at the Katzpace Studio theatre leads us to explore the ins and outs of both dating and simply existing in the big city. Through swift glances into the lives and interactions of office workers, teachers and dentists we’re left with more questions than we started with, but also with a certain insight as to how life here in London can be approached.
This newly devised piece is built around moments of miscommunication. As conversations lapse into silence and words are left unsaid, there’s a certain undercurrent of melancholy. The relationships played out on stage go wrong in so many ways that it’s tempting to ask if they could ever have gone right. Through this lack of connection, characters write each other off as “weird” or a “psychopath”- in other words, different from themselves and therefore impossible to understand.
Part of the tragedy of this piece is that it holds a mirror very close to real life, and the reflection isn’t pretty. The fear and anger of a woman working in an office who is being sexually and socially harassed is one we see all too often both in the news and in our own lives. Seeing it played out on a virtually empty stage is a reminder of what we as a society so often choose to look past.
Despite this level of cynicism, there are moments which are unexpectedly funny. For example, Tim Larkfield’s mild mannered primary school teacher and Joanna Lord’s brash Australian dentist clash so horribly that there’s something comedic about it. Uncomfortable, but amusing nonetheless. Grace Venning’s simple but effective set design is built around a large black and white grid as a backdrop, with heavily pixelated footage of the underground projected at intervals. This worked well for the swift, episodic nature of the play, providing structure while blending in without distracting.
However, it may be worth questioning why, in an effort to show a cross section of dating life in London, only middle class, professional and heterosexual relationships were portrayed. If this play was missing anything, it was definitely short of a sense of the true diversity that London is home to. All in all though, this is small criticism. At its heart, Gaps is an astute and interesting piece of theatre exploring issues that are unique to this place and time.
