A warm and genuine recount of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s is a neurotic disorder that radically challenges how love is experienced, expressed, and recognised. Written and directed by Baihan Liao, The Pillow, The Sun, and The Dinosaur, gently attempts to navigate that challenge. The play circles around the tenderness between a granddaughter BOBO and her loving grandmother whose memories are gradually fading. However, for all its heartfelt intentions and visual beauty, the production often struggles to anchor its emotional and thematic weight.
The play is set on a large patchwork back wall with stitched sheets (Zidi Wu), with duvets and patch pillow on the ground, surrounded by light bulbs. It embeds a warm and nostalgic atmosphere that feels inhabited by memory and intimacy. It may also suggest the non-linear feature of memory itself which can be gently enclosed by the patch pillow.
There are many beautiful vignettes and moments happening in this space. For instance, there are several dancing sequences between Bobo (Chen Xu) and her granny (Bessie Wang) that move with silent, molecular tenderness. Another moment of raw emotional outburst comes from Bobo, where she feels emotionally overwhelmed by her unsuccessful artistic career, expressing how much she loves and misses her granny. Unfortunately, such emotional hallmark is downplayed by directorial blandness – no shift in lighting, no change of soundscape, no breath given, nor any kind of emphasis that could mark this moment. The production just let it go easily.
On a wider sense, the play is ambitious on many themes, ADHD and Alzheimer’s, the contrast between familial love bonds and career aspirations, school bully, first love and romance…but none are properly interweaved into a story, but rather scattered in a quite chopped-up presence, lacking either dramatic or narrative structure.
For instance, The figure of the dinosaur (Jie Liu) leaves rather vague. Perhaps inspired by A Monster Calls, it holds symbolic metaphors for fear, ego and forgotten memory, but its appearance is random and unfocused. In fact, it could’ve been served as a storytelling vehicle for unbound imagination in that “pillow” world.
The play’s decision for a naturalistic acting style may also jar with its own surrealistic impulse. The very stereotyped “Granny” may clash with the show’s potential fluidity and dreamlike quality. As the other two actors are already playing multiple roles, why not instead adopt a more symbolic ensemble approach where multiple players play multiple roles? After all, Alzheimer’s is deeply entangled with the notion of body.
Who has the right to define love? Is love dependent on memory? Who validates love under cognitive decline? The Pillow, The Sun, and The Dinosaur hints at these questions and vaguely points out that memory isn’t fixed, but a dynamic set for continuous creation. Unfortunately, it doesn’t articulate them properly enough, either through emotional resonance, or a profound invitation of thought-provocation.