“The direction is tight, and the acting impressive in Rosie Snell’s onstage adaptation of You”
Mark Wilson’s script for You tells a touching story of a mother being reunited with her son, who she was forced to give up for adoption at his birth. Rather than focusing on this reunion, the play focuses on all the events leading up to that moment. It’s an autopsy of a broken family that treats all its characters with an empathy that further complexes the story. This production at the Seven Dials Playhouse shows some serious promise, with great acting choices and some incredibly concise direction.
Sarita Plowman commands the stage excellently, and her range is impressive. Her portrayal of Kathleen is heartening, but even more so are her performances as Kathleen’s mother and Charlie’s adoptive mother. The vocal switch between these characters is clear and poised, giving each character a fully realised story. This is well assisted by Rosie Snell’s direction. Particularly, the switch between playing Kathleen and her mother was incredibly smooth, conscious of space enough for us to picture exactly where each was standing in the argument sequence. Space is used very well in this production. The aisle between the audience was used well to transition scenes, accompanied by onstage audio to indicate what was happening outside of our field of vision. The direction of the play was consistently very tight, with a great focus and drive to it.
James Dangerfield also delivered a good performance, especially as Kathleen’s father. There was perhaps a little less distinction between the characters he played, and sometimes his accent was a bit unclear. Nevertheless, the two brought to life a strong history of this unconventional family, bringing them up to the instigating moment of the play. There were some touching moments delving into the reasons Charlie’s adoptive parents couldn’t have children, and their pain in this was truly felt.
The set and costume design for the play was more low-key, which felt appropriate for the two-hander. However, some choices felt confusing and unfocused, something which didn’t match the overall tone of the play. The set consisted of several cases and two blocks, with only one of the cases actually being used. Additionally, there was a large metal panel at the back of the stage which was never explained or explicitly used. The set lacked consistency, and would have benefitted from toning it down to a minimalist design (even just the two blocks would work) or committing to a period setting. The costumes were fine, but felt similarly unconsidered. There is a vivid world in the script of this older, small British town, and it felt like this production didn’t quite bring it all to life. The performances did this, which is the most important, but the lack of an explicit design vision and no use of sound to bring to life this world was a missed opportunity. That is, besides Andrew Stuart-Buttle’s composition, which assisted scenes nicely, especially when the orchestral hums became distorted and leaned into the electronic.
The script, originally a radio drama, is written with great use of language, revealing the character’s inner lives and motivations. There is a strange sort of omission of the character of Charlie, Kathleen’s son—not a complete omission, but not much focus either. But regardless of this, the diagnosis is thorough in Rosie Snell’s direction of this story, and with a little more attention given to the world-building of the play, it will captivate audiences across the country when it hopefully tours in the future.