THEATRE REVIEW: Falling

THEATRE REVIEW:

FALLING

at Cast in Doncaster

Ooh, that sounds a bit Henrik Ibsen-ish you might say, but this offering by Theatre Alibi is engaging and, in the end, a quite positive tale of redemption.

It all centres around a hole. A big sinkhole. And it appears all of a sudden in the back garden of Claire and her teenage daughter Alice’s home.

It is doubly unfortunate for Alice as she falls down it and has to be rescued, a trauma which has long-term repercussions for them both.

For Alice, the nightmares and angst that result from her misadventure begin to eat away at her as a person, and she falls from being a grade A student with positive hopes for the future to an academic failure, a listless nobody and a drunken wreck.

But for her mother, the sinkhole inspires her as an artist, driving her in a strange way to want to represent the hole as a work of art. Almost falling into it creatively, as it were. 

However, her once-close relationship with Alice is now on the rocks and a misjudged artwork involving her child falling into the abyss fractures everything between them.

Falling into a hole takes on a number of meanings then. 

There is the physical falling, then there is the hole that appears in Alice’s life, the hole in the mother-daughter relationship, even the gap that appears in the mum’s sense of what is right and wrong.

Everything reaches a trough until Alice rediscovers her love of architecture and is inspired by an image of a bridge to construct one of her own, with her mother’s help, that brings light and normality back for them both.

A bridge over the hole. Victory over the depths of defeat. Evil conquered.

Daniel Jamieson’s intelligent play, with its imaginative use of projected images, puppetry and stage design, keeps the audience interested throughout and there are some genuine surprises as to how the story develops. 

There is humour, there is a hint of thriller mystery, there is a dash of Gothic horror as the hole takes on an almost physical presence in the lives of the two women.

Amy Blair as Alice and Jordon Whyte as Claire put in a sterling effort and music by Thomas Fripp (who doubles as Alice’s eventual boyfriend Adam) brings a dramatic depth.

A thoroughly recommended production from a theatre company with fresh ideas. Worth seeing if you can.

ANTONY CLAY