By Cal
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqYZvX8Y0rI
Available until: Unknown
Trigger warnings: Mental health problems, suicide attempts
With some plays, it doesn’t matter if you know nothing about
the background. You can pick it up as you watch. But with Dawn’s Early Light, I felt at a bit of a disadvantage. I’m a
British person who wasn’t around in in 1988 (I wasn’t born till 2000) and I can’t
help wondering if I’d have appreciated the play more if I’d researched in
advance. At the same time, I do feel a great play should be enjoyable without
research. I don’t really know much about how people lived in Shakespeare’s time
either, but I enjoy nearly all of his plays.
But one thing which did make a big impression on me is how much of the play did resonate with me, despite my ignorance of the events which inspired it. Bad election results, incredulity that racism still exists and mental health problems are very much part of the world we live in now (writer Kenny Hargrove began developing the play in 2016, but it is still in development) and they were all at least mentioned in Dawn’s Early Light. I was glad to be able to feel this connection with the characters, but it also made me sad that, in many ways, we’re still in the same place as we were in 1988. But I do think it’s really important that we know the ways in which we haven’t changed.
At the same time, it is good to see that some positive attitudes
did exist thirty years ago. It’s easy to think of our ancestors as racist,
sexist, homophobic, transphobic and everything else that so many of us rightly
hate. But not everyone held that view and it is important to know that. It’s so
easy to get caught up in hating a whole sector of society.
Kenny has written a play about something which would have
affected millions of people, but he keeps the focus on two characters – Sam(antha)
and Carter. They are both unhappy about
what has happened, both in the election and in their relationship, but they see
the future differently. Their dialogue is powerful, moving and at times
upsetting. Kenny says he’s still working on and developing the play so I don’t
want to see it as ‘finished’ until he sees it as finished, but there is so much
here which is thought-provoking, as well as being a good story.
There are things Carter does which it’s easy to criticise
him for, but I liked that. This play is about two people who are going through
something real. It’s not an instructional video to show us how we ought to
behave when someone is having a mental health crisis. Human beings don’t always
react perfectly. There will always be an element of muddling through because
everyone is an individual.
Genia Michaela gives an outstanding portrayal of mental
health difficulties, conveying so much hopelessness in her face and voice, but
also showing Sam as an intelligent, passionate and caring character. Jamie
Cline plays Carter, helpless but strongly feeling the need to do something –
which is, in some ways, more important than doing the right thing. It is
difficult when people try to help and get it wrong, but it’s probably better
than when people say all the right things which they’ve learned to say, but
they’re clearly going through the motions rather than expressing a genuine
desire to help.
The best thing about this play for me is that Sam is having
a mental health crisis because of a bad election result and a bad relationship.
Mental health crises aren’t always caused by things like abuse, assault or
bereavement. Sometimes they are caused by things which the majority of people
can get through perfectly well (and sometimes they even have no discernible
cause). It’s important to tell stories like Dawn’s
Early Light, firstly to educate people about mental health problems and
secondly to validate people who are severely affected by events which other
people experience all the time and aren’t so deeply affected by.
On the surface, this is a play about two people deciding
what to do next with their lives and their relationships. Underneath, it’s so
much more.
No comments:
Post a Comment