The Everyman is on a roll. Their second work in a row this season wearing the ‘Made in Liverpool’ badge is Attachment, a new play by Julia Cranney, and it is a triumph.
Cranney’s play takes the form of a 70 minute monologue, performed by a single actor – Paislie Reid. Reid takes the role of Mat, a young woman who has had a complicated and lonely past. Raised by her Nan, she has become self-reliant and staunchly self-protective. We meet her as she ponders how to get a stain out of a baby’s jumper, and as her story develops we are introduced to how the fractured timeline will be presented.
Flurries in the air around her denote shifts in time, place, and mood, and as the play progresses the stage gradually fills with a sort of mental debris, as though her conflicting thoughts, cares, hopes and worries, collect around her on the ground, until at one critical point in the narrative they become a swirling tornado of emotion.
Mat seems to be beset with some rubbish days, dealing with a cranky boiler, awkward customers in the pharmacy where she works, buses that leave her stranded, and a driver who drowns her by driving through a puddle - only to turn out to be a nice guy. The text pulls us back and forth through Mat’s mixed emotions, gradually revealing layers of her past, her personality, and her dreams for the future. Slowly she lets down her guard and makes room for a partner, adapting to spending time with his child and his family, and eventually contemplating becoming a potential adoptive parent.
A particularly poignant turning point in the story is when she first sees a baby that is introduced into her life. “I’ve never seen anything so small and so massive all at once” she says, and you can feel the change in her, but this is to be one of the most complex of scenarios in the modern adoption system – an early permanence placement – in which the baby’s birth family remain an integral part. Designed to ensure the best outcome for the child, it is clear that the scheme is not easy for everyone, and we eventually learn that although there can be happy endings, the happiness isn’t shared by all.
Ellie Light’s stage set, centred around Mat’s living room, encloses a strikingly large space for a solo player, but Reid completely fills it. This is a genuinely astonishing performance that has the audience gripped from the opening sentence to the very final blackout. We have seen her before in many guises, but Cranney’s text gives Reid something quite extraordinary to work with and she absolutely soars with it. Kate Treadell directs with passionate urgency, having Reid press forward with the dialogue at a pace, and the occasional brief, momentary pauses between scenes find us catching our own breath.
Attachment is a complex, layered piece of writing that is filled with dry wit and raw emotion, and it is entirely captivating. There is real subtlety in Kieran Sing and Noel Jones’ lighting and sound design that place Reid’s performance absolutely in our focus throughout, and it is impossible to look away for a moment.
It is worth noting the wealth of homegrown talent in this production, from its wordsmith to its creative team, several of whom owe the nurturing of their early careers to this theatre – this is a work of which the Everyman can be justly proud.
Attachment plays at the Everyman until 13th June, and it is unmissable. Tickets are available here.
Star rating: 5 stars
Paislie Reid in Attachment - Picture by Brian Roberts
This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool
Comments
Post a Comment