By Dave
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6btdt5wzkVE
Available until: Unknown
Content warning: Mental health,
depression, suicide, unsupportive attitudes
Estina is depressed about various
things in her life and she can’t lift herself out of it but she wants to be
left alone to feel. Penny doesn’t understand this and tries bringing her out of
it with ice-cream, movies and singing. When Penny’s methods don’t work, she
becomes angry with Estina. Really angry.
David Deblinger's play isn’t an easy watch at all. The things Penny says to Estina are very unsupportive and she’s saying things which a lot of people with mental health problems fear or even believe about themselves. It’s harsh, it’s aggressive and it’s not enjoyable to watch.
But it is interesting because it does
make me very curious about Penny and how happy she is. It has the potential
to be helpful because it is a very good illustration of ignorance and lack of
understanding about mental health problems and it examines the idea of selfishness
in relation to depression.
There are also two really good
performances. Lauren Rose Quigley delivers Penny’s vicious lines with real
conviction, while Sophia Drapeau contributes equally strongly to the scene,
despite being quieter and having much less to say. Communication isn’t always
about being the loud one or the loquacious one.
I also really love the use of the
mask, which sets the play in COVID times without actually referring to it.
COVID is a big thing in our lives right now but it’s far from the only thing in
our lives.
Another thing which I really like is
that (if I’ve got this right), Lauren and Sophia actually aren’t in the same
room. They’re not even in the same state. At a guess, Sophia is in Arizona (the
Arizona camera operator shares her surname) and Lauren is in Pennsylvania.
They’re over 2,000 miles apart. But Will Martinko has directed this so well and
the actors have such impressive chemistry, you’d swear the distance was a
matter of feet. It’s very clever.
No comments:
Post a Comment