Reviewer: Christine Stanton
Writer / Director: Laila Latifa
“Abrupt Anticlimax”
2 / 5
The year is 1969, eight years after suicide was decriminalised in England. A young woman is found dead in a bathroom, but was it self-afflicted, or was it murder? The only suspect – her flatmate Bella Michaelson, is adamant she couldn’t have done that to her best friend, certain that she either did it to herself or someone else was involved, but the evidence continues to stack up against her and it’s only a matter of time before a verdict is delivered.
Writer & Director Laila Latifa has a lot of potential within the juicy true crime style script, but unfortunately the execution falls flat, and the height of suspense is never fully reached. It’s an odd introduction, with the first 5-10 minutes mainly wordless as cleaner (Zafra Howard) potters around tidying up the already tidy police interrogation room. There is also a short contemporary movement piece between the four actors that first introduces Bella (Amelia Kingsnorth) being arrested and taken into custody. The strange beginning would be better worked into something more dynamic, to help to grip the audience from the outset and add tension into the narrative.
The performance then revolves around Seargent Jones (Olivia Rainbow) and Detective Muller (Jacqueline Craine) interrogating Bella about her whereabouts and possible motivations for the murder. Rainbow and Craine do a good job of making the questioning believable, their authoritarian manner stern and unwavering. Kingsnorth plays the sassy suspect with a good balance of humour and vulnerability, both sides of her personality a nice touch to keep the audience constantly debating her guilt or innocence. It’s a very slow-paced show, realistically reflecting the hours that drag in an interrogation, making the 50-minute performance feel a lot longer.
The lighting design (Noa Penia) needs a lot of work, often hindering the atmosphere of the show rather than contributing to it. The actors are backlit in many scenes, so their facial expressions are unreadable, stilting the performances by relying on the script alone. There are occasional revelations and twists that are made throughout, highlighted by abrupt lighting and sound (Jemma Moylan Torke) contributions that are slightly off timed, which steal the shock and intrigue factor of the big reveals. It’s unclear whether this is accidental or a misdirected attempt to make the audience feel the same confusion and uncertainty that Bella must be feeling – but regardless, it really doesn’t work.
While the final revelation helps to explain some of the earlier plot holes, it isn’t a satisfying end, almost rushing to the finish line and contradictorily paced compared to the rest of the show. So much so that when the final scene was done, no-one in the audience quite knew if it had really finished or not, resulting in a very strange anticlimax of people not knowing if it was time to leave!
While there is a lot of work needed in various areas of this show, there are still some moments that really shone both in the writing and in the performances, so with some tweaks this could be a really gripping, thrilling piece of theatre.
Runs until 5th August 2023
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