FringeReview UK 2024
The Promise
Deafinitely Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Lyric Hammersmith Theatre
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, LGBT Theatre, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Lyric Hammersmith
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Being Deaf and living with dementia isn’t a world we might want to imagine Here Paula Garfield and Melissa Mostyn’s The Promise do just that. A Deafinitely Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, Birmingham Rep and Lyric Hammersmith production, it’s directed by Paula Garfield. Currently it plays at the Lyric Hammersmith till May 11th.
With a first-rate cast and team it’s a groundbreaking work.
Written by Paula Garfield and Melissa Mostyn, Directed by Paula Garfield, Associate Director Lisa Kelly, Set & Costume Designer Paul Burgess, Lighting Designer Holly Ellis, Sound Designer & Composer Marie Zschommler, Video Designer Ben Glover, Associate Video Designer Douglas Baker, Movement Director Angela Gasparetto, BSL Director David Sands, Shakespeare Translation William Grint, Voice Coach Zoe Littleton.
Stage Manager Gemma Scott, ASM Fran Osimani, Production Manager Charlotte Ransom, Touring Technician Myles Robinson, Costume Supervisor Isobel Pellow, Photography Becky Bailey, Videography Frazer Cobb Media. PR Hayleigh Randerson, Kate Morley PR
Till May 11th
Review
What happens when the sign language you’ve used and taught to communicate all your life with, no longer works as it did?
Being Deaf and living with dementia isn’t a world we might want to imagine Here Paula Garfield and Melissa Mostyn’s The Promise do just that. A Deafinitely Theatre, Birmingham Rep and Lyric Hammersmith production, it’s directed by Paula Garfield. Currently it plays at the Lyric Hammersmith till May 11th.
The Promise is something BSL teacher Rita (Anna Seymour) makes to her son and his marriage in Amsterdam. Things don’t go as planned. We start with a confident Rita teaching Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee? – translation William Grint) in radiant mode: a born inspirer of her pupils. In 90 minutes we see her world fall apart.
We don’t know why Jane (Erin Hutching) has had to bear so much weight, after the death of Rita’s husband Mike (Louis Neethling), and why son Jake (James Boyle) – who got late to the funeral because of flight cancellations – is so reluctant. Rita though is not experiencing herself quite as she has. It’s clear her dementia has taken hold.
But Jane can’t go on being thankless carer: Jake must step up. Jane finds him a brochure: there’s only one care home in the UK offering dementia care for the Deaf community. It’s in the Isle of wight. It has just 15 places.
This is a play layered with family secrets, griefs and betrayals. We’re treated to a gallimaufry of neatly-sourced newspapers from the early 1980s onwards (moving to colour) as Mike, also Deaf, riffles through the miner’s strike and Rita laments the axing of education funding. Jake lives through all this, and smartens up suddenly. Rita understands. It’s not a girlfriend. Glover’s video intensifies the storytelling with the 1980s AIDS ad.
Meanwhile Mirror-reading mechanic Mike now out of a job is further cut off and in a jump-cut thinks his son might have grown out of being a “poof” then Rita sharply corrects him with “gay”. The warmth between Rita and Mike is compromised but survives.
Neethling interacts with a poignant blank incomprehension, having urged his son to rugby, not comprehending him in the least: again the pressures on members of the Deaf community to perform to stereotype on occasion is displayed with blistering irony. Neethling who also multi-roles as carer and social worker makes a compelling presence.
Boyle’s hurt percolates through. Why has he not visited for years? It’s a performance of a man asking questions and compels through deft interplay and lip-reading as well as BSL. His lighting-up as he signs on the laptop to husband Paul is radiant with another world.
Hutching, whose role as Jane brings layers of compassion and irritation in almost equal measure, also takes a chirpy and out-of-depth young social worker as well as care worker: and one scene as another teacher aiding Rita in her farewell speech as head teacher.
Seymour is naturally the bewildered heart of this remarkable play: every emotion’s registered on her face: confusion, occasionally terror, radiance when in command f everything, frustration and grief. At one moment she’s encouraged to speak.
Set and costume designer Paul Burgess has crafted a set of palest pink and in two doors pale blues where storage opens on to more of those darling buds of May (there’s striking work from video designer Ben Glover) either playing on the set or opening magic casements. A kitchen work top, chairs and Isobel Pellow’s costume supervision is omnipresent.
Marie Zschommler’s sound designer and composition is throbbingly melodic, discreet and reinforces visuals. Angela Gasparetto’s movement direction springs some delicate coups, and David Sands’ BSL direction means everything’s smoothly readable in surtitles.
Glover’s major coup comes with superimposing airport departures over a scene where Rita’s interacting with both carers and memories of flight attendants. There’s a reason a ticket is torn and mended. And how this impacts on all the family. It’s the greatest theatrical moment: it’s difficult to imagine how such theatricality might have been brought in elsewhere but this is where the play bit. With a first-rate cast and team it’s a groundbreaking work.
