★★★½

“The imagery is striking evoked and passionately told”

Bitter Lemons follows two women’s intertwining narratives as they ready themselves for a vital moment in their careers, and a big personal decision.

After a successful run at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023, the show has revived the same team for a London run. It bills itself as an issue play, centring around one moment in these women’s lives, but in many ways that detracts from the message of the piece.

We follow two women – Angelina (Shannon Hayes) and AJ (Chanel Waddock). AJ is a professional goalie and the ‘tart of the team’. Meanwhile Angelina is firmly implanted in the corporate world, having to prove to colleagues, clients and her own boyfriend that she is more than a diversity hire. The stories are superficially different, but connect and intersect throughout.

Writer and director Lucy Hayes’ script blends theatre and prose poetry. The imagery is striking evoked and passionately told. It is at its best when it weaves between the stories, allowing the characters to fly in quick fire entangled prose. But it also has a distancing effect, at times keeping the audience at arm’s length.

The script and performance is at the core of this piece, but Hayes’ direction allows these two aspects centre stage. Some muddied physical theatre does little to add to the atmosphere, but the staging is thoughtful, especially given the parallel narratives.

Chanel Waddock has a powerful physicality, blending comedy and poignancy while retaining a grounded stage presence. Shannon Hayes has excellent comic timing and a strong connection with the audience.

Hattie North’s sound design is throbbingly atmospheric. Creating both internal and external worlds through sound she gives the piece an urgent and purposeful pulse.

The set (Roisin Martindale) which has changed slightly from the Finge, is baffling until the final scene. For me, it wasn’t worth it for the reveal, but with a plastic backdrop curtain, blue Lino flooring and mirrored blocks it has a simple but clean feeling.

The show is quite busy. A lot of ideas are thrown around, and the women’s lives feel at times used to tick boxes of on trend messaging. There are some powerful moments but a lot of the ideas and commentary feels a little familiar. Splitting the narrative makes both stories feel a little undercooked and simplistic, with the characters feeling less well developed than they otherwise could have.

WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU at Park Theatre

★★★★★

“sensitively scripted and staged”

When novelist Tawni O’Dell’s daughter was raped, her first instinct was not to write about it. Only through a one-off session with a psychiatrist was the seed planted that perhaps, after a career of writing fiction, writing something based on her own experience might help to process the event. The result is When It Happens to You, a play that details a family’s experience dealing with trauma, not as a family drama, but more as an extended monologue. Each perspective is told first hand, with only rare moments played out in representative scenes for the audience, the transition between introspection and dramatisation indicated by subtle lighting cues against a simple representation of the New York City skyline (Sherry Coenen).

The play uses the rape – as the title suggests – as something that happened. Amanda Abbington plays Tara, representing Tawni O’Dell who played herself in the original Off-Broadway staging. Abbington talks about it as an event that happened in the past, matter of factly, in the past tense. This is exemplified early on with a repeated refrain to set the scene: “the night my daughter was raped…”. The drama of the piece unfolds in the aftermath, showing how, in the words of Tara, the event metastasizes to become the most significant event in her daughter Esme’s life, despite her protestations. As a result, the event permanently alters the mind and relationships of Esme, her mother and brother, Connor.

Despite the grim subject matter the piece doesn’t feel too heavy or overplayed. If anything, moments of cognitive dissonance between how Tara thinks and how she acts create humour, easing the audience in with the juxtaposition of a horrifying 3am phone call and the mundanity of looking for a missing cat. Later, in her one visit to a ‘shrink’ he incisively points out that she uses humour to hide her pain.

Performances are strong all round. Whilst the piece is primarily told to the audience from Tara’s perspective, Director Jez Bond keeps the cast on stage throughout, reacting in character to Tara, with each of her children having a moment to address the audience directly.

When people talk about Esme (Rosie Day), they express worry, frustration and pain. But when Day addresses the audience, she expresses hope found in the colour yellow. Miles Molan as ‘the little prince’ and scientific genius Connor doesn’t skirt around the issue in his monologue, with a frankly rational yet incisive observation that it’s not just the wound of the attack that plagues Esme, but the additional fear of becoming a social pariah when people find out what happened to her. Tok Stephen’s impact belies his rather limited stage time, playing all other male roles with finesse, adeptly switching between a hardened New York detective, a Tony-winning love interest of Tara, and a $300-per-hour psychiatrist.

Slight inconsistencies in plot and performance can be excused given the powerful nature of the piece with its intimate portrayal of a family in crisis. Whilst the narrative is strong for its specificity, it equally finds strength in being a statistically widespread experience. 1 in 4 women have experienced rape or sexual assault. A staggering statistic, confirmed by Rape Crisis England & Wales, that makes this sensitively scripted and staged piece one to watch.

BITTER LEMONS at Park Theatre

★★★½

“The imagery is striking evoked and passionately told”

BITTER LEMONS at Park Theatre

Reviewed on 30th August 2024

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Alex Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

BITTER LEMONS

BITTER LEMONS

WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU at Park Theatre

★★★★★

“sensitively scripted and staged”

WHEN IT HAPPENS TO YOU at Park Theatre

Reviewed on 6th August 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Mark Douet

Previously reviewed at this venue:

WHEN IT HAPPENS

WHEN IT HAPPENS