“Meet Me At Dawn” by Zinnie Harris is a quietly delicate piece of theatre that begins with a slow burn, and finally builds to a grief-stricken climax. Featuring sensitive performances by Helen O’Hara and Susan Jayne-Robinson, and presented by Her Productions, last night’s performance was at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester.
Theatres have only been allowed to open for the last ten days, and must adhere to Covid restrictions. Hope Mill has taken every precaution, and though masks and perspex dividers in a theatre audience take a little getting used to, it’s not the end of the world, and the theatre was full. Theatregoers are back!
The small stage was mostly taken up by a slanting slope in black, grey and white, suggestive of a stark little sandbar in a mist of grey. Hannah Sibai’s monochromatic stage design kept the characters in an initial state of ambiguity. They are a long-term couple: Robyn and Helen, they live together, and they had gone out for the day to have a romantic boat ride. Somehow it had gone wrong, and they were now pulling themselves out of the water and onto this lonely little strip of shore.
Zinnie Harris’ script teases with the scenario. Initially the presentation is absurdist, almost like “Waiting For Godot”, as the characters try to work out where they are and how they can be rescued before the dog at home needs feeding. Very subtly, and aided by the understated sound design of Eliyana Evans and the simple but effective lighting work of Jane Lalljee, it crosses over into the metaphysical. Robyn was concussed in the accident. Helen didn’t survive at all. This is a post-death experience.
Director Ellie Rose kept a good sense of pace throughout the production, and encouraged a real sense of warm intimacy between the two actors, to celebrate that sort of domestic love only seen in long-term relationships. Susan Jayne-Robinson gave a strong performance as a rather cranky ghost who is rejecting the whole experience. Helen O’Hara, as the widow left behind and in a state of disarray because there is no will or bank details or anything sensible prepared for this event, held the audience in her hand from beginning to end; and in the last stage of the play was wet, shiny-eyed with grief while still murmuring soft, almost nonsensical dialogue about dogs and moths and missing telephone numbers.
Reviewer - Thalia Terpsichore
on - 26.5.21
It was a brilliant performance of a simple and beautiful play.
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