Writer and Director: Luis Dias
Love and memory play on the mind when watching Luis Dias’s new work Are We Friends?, running as part of the Old Red Lion’s Shakespeare-inspired Shakefest, which itself runs as a mini-festival within the larger Camden Fringe umbrella.
Dias himself plays Oliver, a man who is struggling with grief, hanging out on a cemetery bench next to his mother’s grave. His life changes when a young actor, Noah Matthews Matofsky’s Andy, starts rehearsing his lines on the next bench over.
The two men’s burgeoning friendship is as joyous and sweet as it is sudden. This is aided by Andy’s complete insistence on invading Oliver’s personal space both physically and mentally. Maybe this is a byproduct of the character’s (and Matofksy’s) Down Syndrome. Maybe it is just the result of Andy’s relentless optimism, while Oliver only has despair and emptiness. Whatever the cause, it changes the older man’s life.
As the pair runs lines to help Andy prepare for his performance as the title role in Hamlet, allusions to the lead character’s grief-stricken madness infuse the discussion around Oliver’s own mental health. There is also a hint of further grief: meetings between Andy and Oliver are narrated by the latter in the past tense, highlighting the loss of their friendship that drives the play’s central mystery.
Such speculation is fuelled by the narrator’s constant harassment from the mournful jazz standards that accompany his recollections. Initially, it seems as if the ballads are being played at the wrong volume, obscuring Oliver’s softly spoken recollections: only when he shouts at them to stop is it clear that this is not a failure of fringe tech, but a deliberate narrative choice designed to show the debilitation that wallowing in the past can invoke.
Together, Dias and Matofsky may not quite capture the immediate strength of the bond between Oliver and Andy, but they come close. The relationship feels easy and honest, especially in its early stages. What comes less easily are Oliver’s lapses into addiction, whether smoking illicit substances or retreating into alcohol. The reliance on addictive substances is less the issue than the easy promises to stop, and the even easier ways in which he breaks those promises. While the character’s dependency feels believable based on the grief he is experiencing, the willingness to chance it at Andy’s request – and his despair when he finds himself unable to do so – is less earned.
But while some of the play’s scenes feel imperfect, the portrayals of friendship, of loneliness and the struggle between the two are undoubtedly genuine. If Are We Friends? feels slight by the end, it nevertheless packs a hearty punch.
Runs until 14 August 2026
Camden Fringe 2026 runs until 30 August
