We both enjoyed this play.
The subject matter overlaps with several plays we have seen lately – not least the notion of bad parenting sometimes emanating as much if not more from the mother than the father. Also the notion of major personality and mental health issues being passed down the line.
Thematically, it particularly reminded me of Anatomy Of A Suicide which we saw at the Royal Court a few months ago – click here or below…
Anatomy Of A Suicide, Alice Birch, Royal Court Theatre, 3 June 2017
…but in the case of Yous Two, these serious issues are portrayed in a mostly comedic, or at least light-hearted style. The mother is dead and the father is trying his best…which isn’t to say that he is doing very well in many of the parenting departments. The daughter is sassy and clever and wants life to progress for her in a hurry.
I was more impressed by the play and the acting than I was by the set. The whole play takes place in the tiny bathroom of the father and daughter’s grubby pad. The (perhaps unnecessary) full length panels depicting the outside and inside walls of the bathroom adversely affected sight lines for most of the audience, at one end or both. I think that could have been avoided without detracting from the claustrophobic feel.
Worse; the layout of the bathroom was contrary to all common sense – with the toilet backing on to the inside wall and the radiator backing on to the outside wall. Yes I know some botched up bathrooms might end up designed that way, but given the sight-line problem and the illogical nature of the obstacles causing the sight-line problem…
…in any case director Chelsea Walker should know all about bathroom sets. We saw her recent work at the Orange Tree, Low Level Panic, which was also set in a bathroom – click here or below:
Low Level Panic by Clare Mcintyre, Orange Tree Theatre, 25 March 2017
If directors can get type cast in the same way as actors, Chelsea might expect to be directing plays set in bathrooms for the rest of her career now…so she should get her head around plumbing and the basics of design around utility services. I did also wonder, briefly, whether the notion of “kitchen sink drama” has now been superseded by a new genre; “bathroom tub drama”…yes, I obsessed.
So to get back to the bit that really matters, we did really like the play and we thought all of the performances were very good.
All of the protagonists were there the night we went – Chelsea Walker, Georgia Christou the writer etc, as we were there on a preview night.
Unusually for downstairs, there was a proper programme for this show and apparently there will be a press night and formal reviews. Perhaps there has been a permanent change of policy downstairs?…the ushers were unsure. We have long felt it is a shame that some of the wonderful things we have seen downstairs don’t get formal reviews, although we did understand the “freedom for experimentation and innovation” thinking behind the policy. Times change.
Here is a link to the Hampstead resource on Yous Two.
Click here or below for an interesting trailer about Yous Two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPNTgp6M1GQ
Still in preview at the time of writing, but this link should find formal reviews if/when they come.