Writer: Andrew Craig Sharpe
Director: Kat Rogers
There is an interesting melodrama at the heart of The Spiral Path, Andrew Craig Sharpe’s play about intertwining lives thrown into turmoil when someone close is killed in a cycling accident. Unfortunately, the production does its best to keep the good bits under wraps.
The show starts with its sole interpretive dance piece between principals Jonny D’Spenna, Georgina Bennett and Claire Jared that, in retrospect, illustrates the trio’s relationship with one another in ways that is then repeated later in the play.
Also topping and tailing the play are scenes between Bennett’s Kirsty, the accident victim, and Paul Manuel as a slightly befuddled older gentleman. And while this prologue and epilogue carry thematic resonances with the larger piece, they too seem superfluous in the grander scheme.
It feel like an age, then, for the meat of the story to get going, as D’Spenna’s grieving Edward struggles to cope with both the death of his wife and a growing attachment to her best friend Georgina (Jared), who also happens to be the pregnant wife of his off-stage brother, James.
Throw in Jill Priest as Edie, Edward and James’s controlling mother, and there is the setup for an interesting take on a complicated family. However, the progression is marred by a sequence of slow, sometimes unnecessary, scene changes that rob the piece of any momentum.
Sharpe’s dialogue has some interesting moments, particularly when fleshing out Edward’s character. There are, too, some interesting moments as D’Spenna and Bennett mirror one another’s memories of their last day together, the similarities emphasising the differences.
But there are also missteps, including a number of scenes where characters talk about their lives and decisions with levels of self-awareness that never feel realistic. Priest gamely struggles with a character that on the page never ascends above the level of pantomime villainess.
Matters aren’t helped by a mishandled gay subplot regarding a childhood friend of Edward’s. While D’Spenna admirably portray’s his character’s spin into depression, the cause never rings true, robbing the moment of its true potential.
Despite all the production’s missteps, there is a heart at the centre of The Spiral Path that beats loudly and unshakeably. There is just too much frustrating detritus in the way to make the evening as enjoyable as it could have been.
Continues until 26 March 2022
