A heart-wrenching portrait of tragedy ripping apart a relationship
One of the great attractions of small theaters is their intimacy, allowing the audience to directly connect with the action onstage. Anything is Possible if you Think About it Hard Enough, nestled beneath a railway bridge in the Waterloo East Theatre, presents two such intimacies. The burgeoning excitement of new love as it first gets its claws into a couple, and then that same couple reeling from the still-birth of their child. A combination of pitch-perfect acting, incisive observations and smart staging produces a roller-coaster ride in two halves.
Anything is Possible…’s first half starts in typical rom-com fashion. Rupert (Luke Henry) – in control and robotic, the sort of guy who knows exactly how long it takes to brush his teeth – falls for Alex (Rosie Skuse) – laid back, incredibly forward and with a perpetual toothpaste stain on her mismatched jumper. A chance meeting on the underground is followed by an awkward date at a pretentious wine-bar, before the narrative throws off the cliché and catapults the couple into finding out the sex of their baby and diligently inspecting Dulux colour charts for the nursery.
This growing relationship is astutely observed. Conversations sear with the excitement of new love, oscillating from the mundane to the ridiculous at lightning pace. Rupert’s disembodied voice articulates his inner monologue, infusing these early scenes with an endearing, warm humour.
As the relationship becomes more serious and Alex falls pregnant, however, cracks start to appear. Anything is Possible… paints a pretty bleak picture of the effect of pregnancy on a couple, which feels incongruent with the story up to this point. And, as the audience knows a tragedy is on the horizon, this shift feels a little unnecessary and renders the couple harder to relate to.
This first half concludes with Alex giving birth, and the absence of her baby’s cries. The emotional impact is no less of a sledge-hammer because the audience know it’s coming, and both Skuse and Henry are utterly convincing as their anger and denial morph into grief.
Returning from the interval, the second half commences with a baby’s funeral. Rupert’s whimsical monologuing is replaced by his futile efforts to comfort Alex, as he finds himself stuck on the sidelines and powerless to help. His words feel like echoes of the caring father he would have been, only driving the knife in deeper. Alex descends into crisis, harbouring a resentment towards Rupert’s capacity to begin to deal with his grief.
These scenes shimmer with sharp observations, painting a picture of a relationship that it feels increasingly futile to attempt saving. And just when efforts feel at their most hopeless, Cordelia O’Neill’s tightly plotted script knows when to let a chink of light shine through. Compelling dialogue is complimented by understated but successful staging: the sound design situates scenes in time and place, and the set transforms both a fridge-freezer and an empty crib into totems of grief.
Stillbirth remains a taboo topic in polite society, but it is vital that experiences such as those in Anything is Possible… are shared and discussed. The audience are taken on a journey through the joy of first love, the struggle of starting a family, and the pain involved in attempting to recover from fate’s cruelty. Talent is on display all around in a performance that is both empathetic and compelling.
Anything is Possible if you Think About it Hard Enough plays at the Waterloo East Theatre until 24th August. Tickets can be purchased here.