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Didn't Die
- Tour & Scottish Premiere .
Playwright - Annie Caulfield.
Director - Cindy Oswim.
Designer - Annabel Lee.
Lighting Designer - Natasha Chivers.
Sound Designer - Kate Waterfield.
Company - Clean Break - email.
Cast - here .
Venue - Traverse Theatre Edinburgh 0131
228 1404
In Cambridge St near the Usher Hall.
Dates - 30
Oct - 1 Nov at 8pm.
2003 Tour Dates and Times - here .
Seen to review at Traverse Theatre 30 Oct.
Run Time - 2 hours 15 mins including one Interval .
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Truthful tender performance in flawed play.
We fear knowing someone who, having going off their head, does something
so they end up having their liberty taken away. Annie Caulfield's play
suggests that fear comes from ignorance. Didn't Die is about how
people can be put back together, and points out how what took them apart
may be far worse than the actions that got them detained. Trouble is the
play and the production, despite one shining performance, keep on displaying
ill formed moments. It all suggests the production of this new play should
have had a later release date.
There are two mini sets each representing a small flat, one with an unnecessarily
raked tiny floor so the ceiling (each set has one!) makes Dinah's flat
feel like a Alice in Wonderland experience. Simone's flat has a slightly
larger and flat floor, but like the other the set is raised so actors
have to step up into it, and the TV used in one scene rests on the studio
floor. In truth the design is clumsy, there's a curtain department, a
betting shop and several other settings, each requiring an scene change,
which adds to the awkward fragmentation of the play and production.
Some of the writing is very strong and striking, the title comes form
a line, "There are lots of children who didn't die in mental hospitals."
But some of the writing has lifeless lines, no matter what an actor does
they can't be made to quicken. Simone, Lesley Stone, Dinah's friend
and another discharged sectioned patient, and Katie, Angela Bruce,
their psychiatric nurse who's kept in touch, get too many of these. The
result is several of their scenes, mainly in the first half, flop.
Helen Ayers has all the best of this very unevenly written play
in her role of Dinah, a woman who came from what externally looked like
a good background, but from a loveless childhood she found her marriage
just as lacking. Her small flat has got lots of pompoms hanging from the
pelmet and displayed in a bowl. A little strange, but they do stop her
smoking. Hers has been a difficult life, she's spent time in Broadmoor
and then in less dire centres. Discharged to her wee flat she's waiting
for her daughter, Lilian, to call. They haven't met since Lilian was a
baby.
Ayer's truthful tender performance does much to draw you away from noticing
the cracks in this flawed play and fragmented set.
© Thelma Good 30 October 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast: Dinah - Helen Ayers, Simone - Lesley Stone
and Katie - Angela Bruce.
2003 Tour Details of Clean Break's production
of Didn't Die .
Tour begins
1 - 18 Oct at London Arcola Theatre 020 7503 1646.
21 - 23 Oct at York Theatre Royal 01904 623 568.
30 - 1 Nov at Edinburgh Traverse Theatre 0131 228 1404.
6 - 8 Nov at Bath Theatre Royal 01225 448 844.
13 - 15 Nov at Chester Gateway 01244 340 392.
Tour ends
Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is
thelma@edinburghguide.com
Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted
for any errors or omissions.
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