FALLING. To 30 November.

London

FALLING
by Shelley Silas

Bush Theatre To 30 November 2002
Mon-Sat 8pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICJKETS 020 7610 4224
www.bushtheatre.co.uk
Review Timothy Ramsden 20 November

Successful dramatic elements not quite fallen into place to make the big picture clear.All three women here are related: two sisters and a daughter. Yet in some ways it's the relationship between Linda and her partner Peter which is the keenest focus in this new play. Into their home comes Linda's 16 year old niece, aptly or ironically named Grace, who dusts down the discontents of the childless yet loving couple.

Pursued at times by her mother (Jennifer Black saving her role from overmuch marginalisation by an air of comic preoccupation), Abby Ford captures the still part-child limitation of understanding and range of vocal tones, skilfully mixed with a sense of youthful idealism and impetuosity. She has a wish to make all right and a simplistic assurance of how this can be done.

Shelley Silas succeeds in being critically sympathetic on behalf of two generations. Grace is clearly a trial to bring up; she's as evidently someone who finds her mother's protective care stifling in a convincingly adolescent fashion. And someone who's vulnerable yet brave in the situations her life's bringing her into.

There's a similar sympathy spread across Linda and Pete. After five failed attempts, she's giving up on attempts at artificial fertilisation. It's Pete who can't accept a childless future. Adam Kotz embodies decency coming to terms, at crisis moments, with desperation. Patricia Kerrigan shows Linda's resilience, subsuming her own feelings while listening to others. An everyday stoic, she compromises with life and copes with her feelings.

Yet, the piece doesn't quite come off. Some scenes – Linda and Grace's heart-to-heart, the news of an inconvenient pregnancy – sweep easily along. Often, though, there's a sense of contrivance, of actors or director intervening with gestures or pauses to reshape some not-quite-right moment.

Dramatic convenience seems frequently to drive the writing. Abby's propositioning of Pete, Kate's unmotivated entrance right on cue for her daughter's big plot announcement, even the sudden arrival of Grace asking to stay a week with her aunt – all these tend to shoehorn character and action to fit a prefigured outline. A pity: this works against the play's success at portraying people's struggles and minor heroism in the face of life.

Kate: Jennifer Black
Grace: Abby Ford
Linda: Patricia Kerrigan
Pete: Adam Kotz

Director: John Tiffany
Designer: Martin Reynolds
Lighting: Tanya Burns
Sound: Scott George forAura Sound

2002-11-21 01:19:42