ONE DAY WILL BE THE BEST DAY EVER (Compacts)*****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7E5Dyaopog

Available until: Unknown

I really like Rick Allden’s Compacts plays. It’s hard to believe they’re so short because there is so much in each play. The ones I’ve watched have all had a lot of sadness in them, but they’re happy plays too because they have so much love in them and that makes me feel there is hope for the characters.

In a lot of sad plays, the writer makes every single thing as sad as possible and that method has resulted in some really good plays. But I think sad plays with a hint of happiness and hope can be very moving and I think One Day Will Be The Best Day Ever is especially moving.

There is a lot of hope in this play, but there is fear too. A mum is living apart from her son at the moment because she is ill. She misses him very much. She and the dad have an arrangement that she will talk to her son online at a particular time, but something goes wrong (I don’t want to say what, but you’ll find out when you watch it).

It’s a sad play because the mum is obviously sad and when you’re ill, it is harder to cope when things go wrong because you have less strength. So she has trouble coping when her special time with her son doesn’t go as planned. But even though she’s upset, she tries to hard to do the right thing and be a good mum. I think she is a much better mum than she thinks she is. She loves her son so much and even though sticking to a routine is probably really hard for her, she has stuck to the routine with her son. That shows how important he is to her.

Sarah-Louise Tyler gives an excellent performance as the mum. She seems very vulnerable but also quite strong because the love she feels is so strong. She swings back and forth between her despair and her desire to be a good mum in a really convincing way and I really felt her emotions. I think Amie Burns Walker has directed it really well. I like the way the mum is the main focus all the time, but the other thing you need to see is always in shot. It’s like the mum’s world has become very small without her son in it, and it kind of emphasises that if she is sitting in the same place all the time. I think Yoshika Colwell’s music is really beautiful too.