Writer: Tom Powell
Director: Stephen Bailey
Tom Powell’s innovative new play about mental health and neurodivergence is the story of an NHS CBT Therapist, Luc), close to the end of her probationary period with a manager she hates and out of depth in both her work and life and who finds herself sinking into her own mental health crisis.
The play opens with Luc (Sarah Livingstone) sitting facing the audience in contemplation with a graph of anxiety against calm projected onto a large white backdrop behind her, her captioned thoughts projected to the right, sinisterly read out loud: a clever way of displaying her internal monologue and angst. This remains on show for the whole performance and ominously morphs to voices that she may, or may not, be hearing for real.
Lights come up and we find that Luc is on her break when Owen (Jerome Yates) comes in, without an appointment, for a desperately needed therapy session. Unwisely, Luc decides to take the case but things soon turn dark as Owen obviously needs more than six sessions of CBT can help with. He’s been through the institutional processes many times before and is in crisis, needs to talk openly and rationally but worse for Luc, Owen blurts out that it is he who found his drowned sister’s body. This revelation triggers a major mental health crisis for Luc as this is just too close to the bone of her own poorly resolved trauma, a damning indictment of the therapy she herself is offering.
Unfortunately, there just doesn’t feel like a synergy between Livingstone and Yates in this opening session. It doesn’t flow naturally and feels rather awkward from an audience perspective, a shame as this is the seminal moment, the start of the breakdown.
The writing and production save the play from sinking, however. There is intelligent use of the surreal, dream sequences with lab mice on which she once experimented coming back to haunt and torment her. Each time she suddenly sinks into panic, beautifully expressed with ominous hands around her neck as her head thrusts back. Light and sound are skillfully used and enhance the drama and sense of foreboding anxiety exquisitely.
This journey through guilt, grief and loss goes from a swim that she takes to help stay calm to the sea in Margate, where Owen and Luc both lost their loved ones, in search of Owen, redemption, resolution and ultimate recovery.
With just two actors and a simplistic set and with Yates playing several roles, this play adeptly manages to take the audience on a magical odyssey of despair: one which is absorbing, heart-breaking, with a vulnerability and such brutal honesty and insight, that it feels as if it were written by someone with a true and deep understanding of trauma and therapy.
Runs until 1 June 2024
Having seen this play on its opening night in Blackpool and then here at the Omnibus theatre – I can only say that the actors have taken it to a new level – superbly acted – I disagree with the reviewers comment on the opening scene – highly recommend