I booked for this play a long time before the election was called, so it was pure co-incidence that I went the day after it. Though it isn’t a play about politics, they are a significant presence, and seeing it on Friday added a certain resonance.
Widower Andy has been estranged from his daughter Maya for three years, six years since his wife died. He’s had no contact since and doesn’t know where she is or what she’s doing. Someone tells him she was seen in a coffee shop in the town and he sets out to get a message to her to meet him on neutral ground on Christmas Eve. He books and decorates a community hall and waits, but is interrupted by Natalie, who has come to collect crockery. She grills him about why he’s there and they end up replaying his last conversation with Maya, Natalie suggesting why it might have triggered her departure, but it turns out Natalie isn’t a total stranger.
It’s a play about communication, particularly across generations. How we fail to listen, misinterpret, offend, often unintentionally, and how damaging these breakdowns in communication can be. One person’s humour can seem patronising to another, badly delivered feedback can cut like a knife. It’s often very funny but as it progresses it touched a nerve with me and I became quite emotional, identifying with situations like this. Elliott Levey is superb as Andy, brilliantly carrying the first half-hour as a monologue, as he waits. Amber James invests Natalie with a confidence and emotional intelligence and her sparring with, and influence on, Andy was great to watch. When we meet Ellen Robertson’s Maya she’s cold and distant, but its her arrival that tears at your heartstrings.
When you walk into the Kiln, it does feel a bit like stepping back in time, because designer Jeremy Herbert has either revealed or recreated the Foresters Hall that the space once was. Clare Lizzimore’s direction is nuanced and sensitive to the material. My only quibble is that I would have preferred it at 100 minutes without the interval, which felt like an interruption.
A lovely new play, another gem from Mike Bartlett.
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