SWIMMING. To 23 March.

Scotland

SWIMMING
by Frank Deasy

Arches Theatre To 23 March 2002
8:00pm
Runs 50 mins No interval

TICKETS 0141 022 0300
Review Thelma Good 14 March

Complexity scores high in a psycho-drama let down by its staging.Do therapists know the way to mental health? If they do, why do they? Frank Deasy’s Swimming doesn’t answer these questions directly but it does provide a stimulating and well performed piece suggesting how we, therapist or patient, sometimes cope with our lives.

Lucy is a young artist who's just had her graduating show where she's displayed her scars, her visible wounds. Her mother Evelyn has a therapist Valentine, who she wants to treat her daughter too.

Mother and daughter both are trying to cope with some great hurt, a hurt we only learn at the play’s slightly confusing end. Valentine is also young; at first he seems whole and healthy but as the play goes on it’s clear he’s covering up too. David Ireland, a fine actor last seem in the Citizens' Observe the Sons of Ulster, gives us a many layered Valentine as he strips away his veneer to the scarred soul underneath.

Deidre Davis as Evelyn and Laura Smales as Lucy give us a mother and daughter walking round on egg shells, tender with each other, taking care not to break too much. So often plays on these topics go for bitter, angry portrayals. Swimming eschews this, going for a much better, complex approach which, structurally, is most
revealing in the monologues. Unfortunately the necessity of actors entering and exiting through the audience imposed by the stage layout breaks its increasing dynamic.

Evelyn: Deidre Davis
Lucy: Laura Smales
Valentine: David Ireland

Director - Frank Deasy

2002-03-21 01:31:57