“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.
“Ebony Jonelle and George Howard have a genuine chemistry that lifts the whole production”
Matthew Gabrielli’s debut play certainly doesn’t shy away from the relevant and prevalent: Internet trolling, arguments for free speech, and cancel culture are all batted back and forth, changing hands between those that suffer and thrive under the harsh rule of social media, and those that perpetuate the worst of it.
Our troll is a giant papier-mache Punch puppet- unsurprisingly named Mr. Punch. And having spotted a selfie in which our protagonists, Sophie and Jamie, have unintentionally included a floral tribute for a dead child in the background, Mr Punch decides to try and ruin their lives.
There’s both not enough and too much being dealt with in this 90-minute straight-through. Most of the plot is fairly predictable, pointing out the injustice and cruelty of the internet, the very real effect it can have on your life. On the other hand, Gabrielli tries to touch on white privilege, sexism, classism, the ineffectiveness of the police, amongst other things, and there just isn’t time.
The use of puppets definitely adds to the production value, but it takes something away from the story itself. While I understand they facilitate a big reveal of Mr Punch’s true identity, the moment comes far too late, so there isn’t really enough time to understand him- we’re given to acknowledge that he’s a multifaceted person who’s done a lot of good, who has people he loves. But ultimately, he doesn’t seem too dissimilar to his puppet likeness.
All that said, Ebony Jonelle and George Howard have a genuine chemistry that lifts the whole production, and notwithstanding Howard’s Jamie having a slightly unbelievable character arc, their relationship rings true throughout. They’re funny and teasing, and despite being from different backgrounds, they seem to understand each other. Or at least they want to.
Delyth Evans’ stage design amounts to three lots of sheer curtains, a set of double doors, and a couple of stacking boxes. But the simplicity is quite elegant, creating various spaces and atmospheres with very little changed.
There’s a lot that’s good about this production; it’s very close to feeling important and urgent even, but the script wants a thorough going-over.
