FALLING APART AND FINDING A WAY BACK IS THE ESSENCE OF THIS INTENSE 85 MINUTE PLAY

By Anthea Gerrie | Vie Magazine: Anthea Gerrie | Press Invite

When It Happens To You is reality-based drama for an audience addicted to reality TV.  Written by a best-selling American author seeking to exorcise her real-life trauma by setting it down on the page and staging aspects of her pain, the lead character of this off-Broadway hit is being brought to life in London by an actress who has bared her own real-life trauma in interviews promoting this new play at London’s Park Theatre. 

Amanda Abbington is a fine actress, whose expression permanently suggesting a tortured past behind a small, wry smile is a perfect front for Tara, the successful writer bent on trying to hold on to normality as her family falls apart.   But it’s reality TV which has raised Abbington’s profile as the Strictly Come Dancing contestant who after complaining to the BBC about abuse by her professional partner reported being subjected to rape threats against her daughter as well as herself from sceptical trolls. 

Perfect, then, to play a woman attempting to deal with the worst nightmare for the mother of a daughter – failing to be able to protect her against sexual violence, while playwright and actress Rosie Day, who played out adolescent turmoil in her own hit play, Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon, at Southwark Playhouse, is an obvious choice for Esme, the daughter so unable to process and move on from her rape she sets off a downward spiral which threatens to destroy her whole family. 

The falling apart and finding a way back is the essence of this intense 85-minute play, all the more unrelenting because it is played out in the round, in a tiny space where actors often act out their rage, helplessness and frustration inches from the audience, with no interval to relieve the action. But the experience is worth braving to see both women and their two male co-stars, Miles Molan playing Esme’s brother Connor, a man often locked inside his own head, and Tok Stephen, bringing an accomplished authenticity to several roles – cop, shrink, Tara’s lover and more – give excellent performances, in which their body language has to compensate for an absence of props, adding to the narrative in the way they move as well as what they say. 

It’s no surprise the creative team includes a sound artist, whose muted soundscapes bring atmosphere to an otherwise bare set, and a movement director; Natasha Harrison is to be commended for the way she makes her characters dance around the stage and each other, folding up and unfolding as the story moves into each of their spaces.   But the show may be unique in also harnessing the services of a mental health partner – Applause For Thought, performing arts professionals whose job is to make sure cast are able to survive the intensity of the story they tell nightly. Abbington has hinted she would have welcomed such support while she was attempting to survive Strictly – at least her character Tara finds her route to redemption by taking her shrink’s advice and letting out the dark secret she has kept bottled up for more than two decades. 

When It Happens To You runs till August 31.

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Photo Credit: Mark Douet

CREATIVES

Writer: Tawni O’Dell
Director: Jez Bond
Sound Artist: Melanie Wilson 

CAST

Amanda Abbington – Tara
Rosie Day – Esme
Miles Molan – Connor
Tok Stephen – “Multirole male”