Maggie May

Maggie May, a new play premiered in 2022, tells the story of a family crisis and the strains it places on their son’s romance with his new girlfriend. Above all it’s a love story, laced with music and mixed humour and drama. An excellent production by Brian Jackson captures every bit of that and more.

The play opens with Maggie (Jane Bovell) getting husband Gordon (Steve Doidge) up and dressed as he recovers from a stroke. They are expecting son Michael  (Tudor Smoleanu) soon to arrive for a birthday lunch with new girlfriend Claire (Lori Weber). Michael is now running the family business single handed. Meanwhile Jo (Suzanne Hill) a good friend of Maggie visits, always good for a laugh, but complains that Maggie has been letting her down by not joining in with various activities. Without exception the acting was excellent throughout.

Maggie explains how useful it is to write the odd ‘post- it’ note, as a reminder to do something and picks one up from the floor (One, I wondered if it had been left inadvertently before the play began). But in a later sequence when Maggie reminisces and others on stage freeze, it also becomes clear that for simple routines her memory is not so good, including calling Claire, Emily (an old girlfriend) on several occasions. At the lunch table, Gordon feels now is the time to announce Maggie is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, news which Michael finds hard to accept. When Maggie explains what it is like to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, Jane’s acting is superb.

There are some lovely and moving moments when Gordon sings to Maggie who joins in, with the appropriate background music for the song. Their warm relationship together was totally convincing. From suffering an infection, Maggie is in hospital and visited by Jo and Gordon. Maggie realises she had previously upset Jo and although she can’t remember exactly what she said, she still felt bad inside. An absorbing scene so well handled.

Scenes switched from one home to another by the simple repositioning of a settee and change of seat cover and cushions. At Claire’s home, Maggie learns that she and Michael had split up, mainly due to Michael’s lack of communication which Tudor acted out convincingly, but Maggie reads out some heartfelt words that she noted he had said about Claire, which clearly explained that he still loved her very much. Claire obviously felt the same way and Lori’s performance earlier as the new girl-friend, and later on was both endearing and compulsive watching.

There was another poignant moment when a large number of ‘post-it’ notes fell from above, when Maggie’s Alzheimer’s disease was put into context.

In Act 2 there were  a number of  what I call ‘moments of (great) theatre’; when Michael left a hospital visit because he could not cope with the situation, Gordon’s understanding for Maggie  when she was frightened about the future, a lovely scene when Maggie visited Jo, who gave a very natural performance throughout, another moving moment when Gordon starts to sing and Maggie joins in and a very moving moment when Gordon realises she hadn’t remembered that someone recently mentioned, had died.

The staging was also excellent; as usual a well -built set, a variety of lighting effects and music accompaniment that was just right. At the opening of each act, a spotlight on a pair of Gnomes embracing each other, set on a sideboard, for me epitomised the warmth behind their relationships that faced adversity but succeeded. Thank you for the warm welcome and an excellent evening of quality acting.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.