Rosa Gatley’s intelligent script explores the reunion of two childhood best friends at a dinner party, Amelia and Bonnie, who are brought to life by Arabella Finch and Stella Cohen.
I didn’t know how to start this review, because it’s hard to think of anything of substance to say about a play that’s so good it leaves you in tears.
The props, lighting, music, and staging for ‘Disco 2000’ are simple. Tennis rackets, a Charlie Higson book, and clothes and toys are piled up around the stage. Two chairs sit at the centre.
The play alternates between the past and present lives of its two protagonists, Bonnie and Amelia, and the set design allows it to slip easily from one to the other. We are introduced to Bonnie and Amelia as children, and to an older Bonnie who is about to see Amelia for the first time in fifteen years.
It feels wrong to call the scenes set in the protagonists’ childhoods flashbacks. Equal weight is given to the time spent with them as adults and as children, allowing ‘Disco 2000’ to effectively contrast the naive energy of the younger selves with the nervousness of their older ones. The play is full of these juxtapositions, deliberately jarring at first but soon smoothly switching between laughter and tears as well as between childhood and adulthood. Bonnie says she loves being in high places; Bonnie feels sick when she looks up at the Shard from her window.
This dexterity would be impossible without the incredible Arabella Finch and Stella Cohen. The two actresses are always enjoyable to watch. Their characters’ younger selves, thanks to Kitty Sharland’s smart choreography as well as their own physicality, are playful and energetic. One particularly brilliant moment involves Cohen screaming while chewing a tennis ball.
Again, the key to the success of ‘Disco 2000’ is in its contrasts. The adult Bonnie’s imitations of her friends and boyfriend, while funny, serve to convey her frustration at the hollowness of her life just as much as the haunted expressions Finch juxtaposes them with.
The adult Amelia’s late entrance into the script perfectly mirrors Bonnie’s own experience: all she has to know Amelia by are the childhood memories that the audience has been exploring throughout the play, and suddenly they’re sat staring at each other. A door opening has never felt so tense.
Rosa Gatley’s script is funny, sharp, and often beautiful. It feels dishonest to call Amelia and Bonnie, and even Amelia’s friends, anything less than people when they feel so human; it feels wrong to even try to nitpick a play that affected me so much emotionally. ‘Disco 2000’ hits all the right notes, and I felt as if it was written for me. Asking it for explanations to its ambiguities, for answers, just seems like missing the point. The best moments in ‘Disco 2000’ are often found in its implications, in its shadows and empty spaces.
‘Disco 2000’ lives and breathes; I loved it.