Morna Young’s newest play about assisted dying dives headfirst into a sticky spider web of a topic but doesn’t get far with its surface-level characters.
Vivienne Blackwood decides to die on the night of her 80th birthday after a terminal cancer diagnosis. Why she does so and how she goes about telling her dysfunctional family raises all the hairy questions surrounding the taboo topic of assisted death.
Directed by Katie Posner, the Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough, After Party is a seriously relevant play with some big tasks to tackle in just two hours. While the themes it surfaces are engaging and timely, the play ultimately lacks characters complex and real enough to care about and, therefore, explore those themes deeply. As a result, what could have been a heartfelt investigation into an increasingly relatable topic – especially amidst an aging population, with people not only living longer but also, as a result, having to deal with multiple health issues – was a simple story dramatized by relationships I did not feel inclined to care about.
There was a great literary effort made to bring in multiple perspectives on the topic. The three generations of the family who gather for Vivienne’s birthday party represent a very wide and thought-provoking range of perspectives with which to explore assisted death. Noteworthy performances by Liz Kettle and Benny Young ground the story enough to make it a worthwhile experience to stick it out till the end and offer a few good laughs along the way. Also of note is the nuanced work by Lighting design by Rory Beaton and Sound and Composition by Oğuz Kaplangi, which seamlessly fortified a story despite a few loose parts.
Show Listing: https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/after-party
LISTINGS INFORMATION:
Venue: Traverse Theatre
Dates: until 30th August
Time: various
Ticket prices: £29.50
Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / www.edfringe.com
Suitable for 14+