Produced by No Offence Theatre, the enterprising company
that he founded with Nastazja Somers, Bj McNeill’s Torn Apart (dissolution)
is back at Theatre N16 following a preview period at the venue last year and a
run at this year’s Brighton Fringe. It’s a most welcome return, for this is a resonant and rewarding piece that fully deserves wider exposure.
Three decades-spanning love stories – two of them
transnational – unfold and interweave over 75 minutes, each taking place in a
different bedroom. In West Germany in the early 1980s, a Polish student, Alina (Somers herself) is involved in an affair with an American soldier (Simon Donohue),
their encounter at once highly specific yet also reflecting wider tensions and
attractions between East and West at this time.
In London in the late 1990s, Casey (Christina
Baston), an Australian backpacker, has hooked up with Elliott (Elliott Rogers),
an intense young chef, but the progress of their partnership seems stymied by the
imminent expiration of Casey’s visa, which, as she wryly notes, has given her enough time to make a life in the UK but not enough time to stay (not that
she’s entirely sure that she wants to, anyway).
In 2014, meanwhile, the
affluent Holly (Sarah Hastings) has left her husband and child to be with Erica
(Monty Leigh), but the relationship is challenged by, among other things,
Holly’s conflicted feelings and some distressing news from Erica.
Concealing and disclosing as it elegantly develops its complementary triple time-line of liaisons, the
structure of Torn Apart (dissolution) recalls works as
diverse as Tom Stoppard’s play Arcadia, Michael Cunningham’s
novel The Hours and, especially, Tim Kirkman’s wonderful
(and sadly under-seen) 2005 film Loggerheads, in which the
fallout of a decision forced upon a young woman reverberates over three
interwoven time periods some years later.
Despite such resonances, McNeill’s play doesn’t feel
derivative, though. Rather, it offers an astute look at relationships that are simultaneously enabled and compromised by forces both external and internal. With an
excellent set by Szymon Ruszczewski that boldly evokes the cage of
circumstances that confine and inhibit the characters (and the “cage” of coupledom
itself, perhaps) the play adds up to an insightful exploration of the factors
that both unite and divide lovers.
The sensibility of the piece is notably different to that of
much contemporary British work for the stage: while not without moments of
levity, McNeill’s text maintains a seriousness of intent and approach that’s
bracing, refreshing. Whether it’s Somers’s outspoken Alina reflecting on her father's fecklessness and her mother’s
conservative attitudes, or Hastings’s Holly worrying that her abandonment of her
child is a repetition of her own father’s behaviour, this is a play that’s profoundly
concerned with parental legacy, and the way in which mothers and fathers,
whether known or unknown, may condition and affect the lives of their
children.
As director, McNeill keeps the production fluid and
dynamic: the sharply rhythmed scenes sometimes overlap, with characters appearing
as ghostly presences in the other strands. (Only the pivotal penultimate sequence could benefit from a little more clarity and definition.) And it’s not all
talk, either: music (including Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart,” Fat Boy Slim’s
“Praise You” and Sia's “Elastic Heart”) is judiciously employed throughout, and the piece is punctuated by
economical yet expressive moments of movement that brilliantly evoke the
characters’ inner lives and emotional states.
The accomplished cast of six work together wonderfully well, delivering
brave and exposing performances that create vivid individual impressions while
also forming a cohesive collective. Sensitive to the caring and the cruelty that takes place in relationships,
unsentimental yet also uncynical, McNeill and his collaborators have crafted
an intense and intimate production of the kind of play that you see pieces of
yourself in.
Torn Apart (dissolution) is booking at
Theatre N16 until 30 September. Further information here.
Sounds interesting, thanks for the review.
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