This play,
as the title suggests, is about three women. Starting in the 1983 when they
meet up at university aged eighteen and tells their shared story, out of which
we discover their individual stories. Their journey takes them on a road to a
profound friendship that both supports and impacts their lives' over many years.
Billed as a tragi-comedy the girls share hopes and dreams, challenges and not a
few secrets along the way, ‘We have joint custody of a chunk of the past’.
Hope Street Theatre uses the newly transformed theatre bar as a crush bar where people
gather, chat and have a drink if they wish prior to performances, so people are
generally relaxed as they enter minutes before the show. The theatre was set up,
for this performance, with tiered seating overlooking the end stage in this
flexible theatre space. As one audience member stated, ‘There are no bad
seats.’. There was a studio feel that lent itself well to the performance, providing
a more intimate New York theatre-like experience. This feeling was made even
more apparent when the focus of the play moves to New York in the second act.
This
three-hander requires opinionated, sexually aware women and this is what we got
from the individually stunning performances of the three women. Rose (Olivia
Hackland) opens the show and from her first sentence both engages and enchants
as a Home Counties floundering fresher-student at an unnamed university
somewhere ‘up north’. Her engagement with northern feminist Viv (Grace
Galloway) is funny and revealing. Liverpool born Galloway brings realism and a
mature performance to a demanding role that sees her character, Viv, change the
most of the three. Once Di (Bex Culshaw) appears we know we’ve got a story. Di
is for me both the strongest and the most sensitive and Culshaw captures her complex
character beautifully. Where Rose is the glue, Di is the anchor for the group
and the three girls’ friendship is most poignant when Di’s foundation is rocked
as she faces more than her share of harsh reality. There is a lovely on-stage
rapport between each of the cast members.
A very clear
timeline is portrayed visually, musically and with props that are updated
through the years. The play also addresses serious period issues through the
dialogue, such as Rose’s remark ‘only boys can get AIDS’. The play attempts a
great deal and with a running time of two hours and forty-five minutes it was
too long. The first act was a full ninety minutes. This was mainly due to going
to blackout after each of the (some very short i.e. two lines) scenes. Whilst
this gave a snappiness that was effective and economical allowing the
characters to cover a lot of ground quickly; technically the lighting was effective
but the timing coming back repeatedly took far too long, leaving the audience
in darkness wondering, each time, whether it was the interval.
Technicalities
aside, Amelia Bullmore’s script provides a great deal of humour. There were
some dialogue timing issues, that just missed capitalising on opportunities for
comedy moments, but overall the humour played well. The early years capture
university life, where little about leaving home for the first time has
changed, so well that students should be flocking to this play. The outdated
80s phrases are hilarious and period costumes are used to great effect. The
real-life dilemmas faced by the girls are still current enough to engage a
younger audience as well as entertain those who are survivors of the decade
that brought us new technology in the shape of microwave ovens and mobile
‘phones. The attention to detail is well documented in the story.
There is
great potential with this talented group of actors for transfer to a wider
audience, once the timing issues are sorted out.
Reviewer - Barbara Sherlock
on - 11/10/18
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