Demons

Director Gilly Fick took a brave decision to take on the huge challenge of tackling this harrowing play by Richard Everett.  One might also say the audience had to be pretty brave in watching it – in the first half it became more and more horrific by the minute. It was a difficult watch, but turned out to be a very rewarding one, and I guess the whole audience agreed that it had been an important piece of theatre, a powerful play. There was a Q and A session with the author after the performance, which was very enlightening and interesting.

The striking set, designed by David Hemsley-Brown, was stark. All-white plastic furniture, set on three different levels. On the left was Hannah’s living room, just a coffee table and a bench, representing a sofa. In the middle, on the lowest level, was an empty bookshelf in front of which were two chairs, this was the realm of the therapy sessions. On the right was a bar with two bar stools, where Hannah would sometimes meet with a friend. The only pieces of colour were an orange vase on the coffee table, and two glasses of red wine on the bar. As a backdrop were three white sheets, onto which lighting of different colours was projected. Another fine set from Guildburys – one of their many talents.

Before the play began, and later before the second half, some intriguing music was played. Four actors appeared on the still dark stage and three sat facing away from the audience in the dark recesses of the area. Only Hannah was then in the spotlight facing us, wringing her hands. At first we didn’t know the cause of her anguish, she talked about the relief of being asleep, the horrors of waking and wishing she could go back to sleep again. She then had a session with Carla, her therapist. ‘So you pity and despise yourself’. We still didn’t know the root cause of her problem. Trying to hail a taxi in the rain, she bumped into her old friend Jamie, who persuaded her to go for a drink.

I don’t actually remember when we found out what had befallen her, was it in the scene with her poor husband Leo? Gradually we found out, and horrifying details were added on layer by layer throughout the first half. Their only son had been killed, by a drunk driver, as he was on a crossing, just outside their house – not a hundred yards from home.

There was anger, towards her husband, towards the therapist. There were meetings with Jamie, bits of light relief. He wrote her a poem. Was he falling for her? If so, in a very non-intrusive way, as he kept explaining.

Leo, her husband tried to be understanding, but in his own fashion, not in a way she could appreciate, people deal with loss in different ways, I think that’s something he said. And of course I, and probably several people in the audience, were thinking about that quite a lot.

Carla, Hannah’s therapist, then tentatively suggested she meet the imprisoned driver. A tearful, angry exit from Hannah. A tearful meeting with Jamie, who seemed to act as a kind of buffer zone between the horrors of going home, and having to cope with their different ways of dealing with this all-consuming grief.

So, layer upon layer, Hannah’s desperation was growing. Just when we thought things couldn’t get any worse, Leo confessed to a fling. Two sources of anger, two sources of grief. And what about him?

The interval came as a great relief. One was so bound up in this awful situation, in Hannah’s head practically, a break was really needed, a bit of chat, thinking about something else.

The second half started cleverly with the music again, and Hannah repeating her speech about waking up and wishing to go back to sleep. Slowly, slowly, things gradually changed for Hannah. She visited Daniel, the driver, prison bars at the window, paper cups instead of wine glasses here, several times, growing to know him as a person, with his own awful problems too.

This play was so powerful, the cast so immersed in it, that we were totally immersed too. There were further dreadful revelations, yet month by month the therapy seemed to be getting her to progress through her grief. ‘You do have control over how you respond’ ‘Hatred is a hard road; forgiveness is a destination’. ‘Blame is a cul-de-sac’.  I might be slightly misquoting there, but these were lines that cut through to me.

Gosh, we had to think so hard when watching this.

The whole thing was put together like, well, like what? Like repairing a delicate piece of Chinese porcelain that had been shattered into hundreds of pieces. The five cast members worked so hard, especially of course, Samantha Remnant as Hannah. Here was a role that allowed her to explore the full range of her talent, a masterful performance. Neil James made an excellent Leo, as he rode through his emotions, misunderstood, angry at himself and Hannah, puzzled, perplexed, patient. Amy Kaye was a very clever Carla, a very real seeming therapist we felt. Joe Hall was the carefree, yet very concerned friend, and somewhat unlikely occasional poet. Mike Pennick the tortured, yet calm and accepting prisoner. Great casting by Director Gilly Fick, who together with that fine cast had produced a well-crafted, layered, true ensemble piece, a whole beautiful Chinese porcelain vase.

But difficult it was, to watch.

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