RIBBONS (Saplings/Bloom Theatre/Lion & Unicorn Theatre)***

 

By Cal

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IEU6B_50fw

Available until: Unknown

Ribbons was performed as part of the Saplings series in early March 2020. It was filmed in a crowded auditorium with lots of close contact between the two actors.

It just makes me think how lucky the performers and audience were that this performance went ahead. Another couple of weeks…

Ribbons is set on a train. Rachel and Pam are going on a very important journey to meet someone who is going to change their lives. In a really good way. But in a new, different, terrifying and completely irrevocable way.

Gemma Lawrence’s script really captures the nervousness of the two women and the way it’s making them behave, but even when they’re arguing, there’s a really lovely sense of rapport between them. However much a passer-by might think murder is a possibility, no-one who’s heard everything we hear in the play would think that. Rachel and Pam really do understand each other. It’s the sort of closeness where they can say anything they like and it’ll be okay… when Rachel has calmed down, anyway.

Although the subject of the play is a serious one, Gemma has put a lot of humour into the play, but it doesn’t seem frivolous at all. It’s very funny, but there’s a strong sense of drama at the same time. A knowledge that it could all go wrong – and we don’t want that, any more than Rachel and Pam do.

Director Ewa Dina keeps it realistic with the two characters occupying seats side by side at the start of the play and only getting them to move when the script demands it. This could have made the play seem static, but there is so much going on in the script, both in terms of what is said and what isn’t said, the very last thing this play has is a sense of stillness. The women’s bodies might be fairly still, but their thoughts are racing and that creates all the onstage energy the play needs.

The two actors are clearly very comfortable with each other, quite happily shouting at each other and over each other. Jessica L. Pentney is abrasive and neurotic as Rachel, but there’s a deep sense of passion inside her. This train journey really is so important to her. Isabele Hernandez is a gentle and softly-spoken Pam, but she’s far from a pushover.

Ribbons is a lovely exploration of a very significant event which I hope will become part of more and more people’s lives.