Writer: Beth Bowden
Recently nature writing has merged with illness narratives. Most famous is Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path where a couple, one of whom is terminally ill, walk the South West Coast Path. Others, like H is for Hawk, follow the traditions set down by the elegy and employ nature as a place in which grieving takes place. So, Beth Bowden’s Right of Way is nothing new, but there is a certain charm is seeing such a narrative staged.
Bowden goes walking when her mother is diagnosed with illness. Her mother can no longer walk her favourite coastal paths so Bowden will walk instead. She walks, too, in the footsteps of her female ancestors. Walking is in these women’s blood.
With ewers of water on the floor, bags of salt hanging from the ceiling and a film projected on to the back wall, Bowden’s story is sometimes too disjointed and too earnest. Her movement around the stage is occasionally too poetic with delicate twirls and flourishes. Her show works better when she talks directly to the audience and when her movement, like the simple use of two fingers on the forearm to capture the motion of walking, can be clearly interpreted.
There are also some very odd directorial decisions. When Bowden is most blunt, polemicizing the Government’s handling of the Covid epidemic where disabled people have been forgotten, she sits down in the front row and no one but those sat next to her can see her. It seems strange to disappear at the very crux of the play. Bowden presents the chilling statistic of how six of out 10 people who have died from Covid are disabled, but other figures are chalked out onto the floor where only the front row can see them.
What does work, however, is the music, here uncredited, and it brings a good deal of emotion to the proceedings. While the stage is too busy, the simple joy of watching salt spiral out of its bag on to the floor is surprisingly moving too, and it’s a shame that not all the bags are sliced open in a similar way.
Also successful is the way Bowden weaves her own personal story into a wider one, one that even after the pandemic has supposedly finished, continues as disabled people and people with long-term illnesses still shield from the outside world. But Bowden’s leisurely performance at the start of the show rather acts against this urgency. It takes far too long for Bowden to put on her walking boots.
Runs until 26 February 2023
