Old Fools
Southwark Playhouse
Reviewed – 15th March 2018
★★★★★
“poignantly explores the highs and lows that come with a long-term relationship”
Over the years there have been some iconic love stories that have been shown on stage and screen: Romeo and Juliet, Kathy and Heathcliff, Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, Sandy and Danny, Harry once he met Sally … the list is endless. However, it is very rare that you get to see beyond the happy ever after (or the tragic young death in the case of poor Juliet and her Romeo). Old Fools, at the Southwark Playhouse, poignantly explores the highs and lows that come with a long-term relationship. As the show’s playwright, Tristan Bernays, explains: “sometimes (relationships) they’re amazing; sometimes they’re f*****g hard; but that’s the deal. Can’t have one without the other”. With no set and no stage directions, this is a very stripped back and honest piece of theatre. It’s the actors and nothing else, baring their souls and crushing the audience with their honesty.
Through a series of snapshots, we are introduced to the couple Tom (Mark Arends) and Viv (Frances Grey). From their first meet in Paris, right up until their twilight years where Viv is lovingly caring for Tom now struck down with Alzheimer’s, we weave back and forth between the key moments of their life together.
Bernays’ skilful use of language cleverly draws scenes together by topping and tailing them with the same line of dialogue – just under different contexts. Likewise, movement director Lucie Pankhurst proves originality in the way she can smoothly make a moment turn from the embrace of young lovers, to an elderly wife lowering her incapacitated husband down to sit.
The chemistry between the actors Mark Arends and Frances Grey is truly magnificent. Grey effortlessly shifts between the characters of wife, daughter, doctor, whilst Arends gives a heart-breaking performance as a man who is gradually caught in the dreadful grips of such a debilitating disease. The real triumph is seeing Alzheimer’s exposed on stage in such a brutally true light. With statistically more of us likely to develop some form of dementia, Old Fools is a stark reality check of what could lie ahead in our future. Nevertheless, as much as Bernays’ work elicits many a tear and a sniffle from the audience, it also produces some heart-felt belly laughs at his witty repartee between Tom and Viv.
Reviewed by Phoebe Cole
Photography by Nat James
Old Fools
Southwark Playhouse until 7th April
Related
Teddy | ★★★★★ | Watermill Theatre & UK Tour | January 2018
Frankenstein| ★★★★ | Wilton’s Music Hall | March 2017
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