REVIEW: The Backward Fall, Hen And Chickens Theatre ✭✭✭

Rochelle Thomas and Ruth Sanders (Right) in The Backward Fall The Backward Fall Hen & Chickens Theatre 13th August 2015

3 Stars

The Backward Fall is a thoughtful and touching play. It handles the attempts to cope with a loved one’s dementia extremely sensitively, and I feel enriched for having seen it. Yet a few unsubtle moments, coupled with a rushed conclusion, prevent the story from achieving its full potential. This production acts as the epilogue to the incarnation of The Backward Fall that was seen at Islington’s Courtyard Theatre in January 2015. It takes place in the childhood home of Lilly (Ruth Sanders) and Clara (Rochelle Thomas), two sisters whose mother, Etta, had died after developing early-onset Alzheimer’s. With Clara’s demure husband Alexander (Oliver Gully), in tow, the sisters attempt to divide their possessions. As they do so, memories resurface, and tensions begin to run very high.

As character establishing scenes go, the introduction is impeccable. At first, Lilly calmly enters the room, opens a couple of her mother’s old letters, and emits a resigned sigh. Then, Clara sweeps in, oblivious to the disarray of cardboard boxes that surround her, and hysterically recounts the horrors of her and husband’s journey. Shortly afterwards Alexander enters, hugs Lilly and succinctly says, “We hit a rabbit”. Two brief, but intimate moments shared between Clara and Alexander juxtapose the tension between the sisters, which comes to a head when a choice phrase of Lilly’s leads Clara to question whether Lilly resents her for not caring enough for their mother during her decline. Lilly, Etta’s principle carer, does not deny it, which catalyses the rest of the play.

The fallibility of memory is at the centre of The Backward Fall’s most heartrending moments. An unresolved argument between Clara and Lilly as to who created a coveted Christmas decoration beautifully exemplifies the sisters’ resentment towards each other. Clara’s story paints herself as her parents’ “golden girl”, whilst Lilly’s tale of accidentally ruining this gift for her mother is tellingly described as “pathetic”. Later, Clara gleefully chastises Lilly for forgetting to inform their mother’s hairdresser of her passing, a passive-aggressive act that seeks to mimic her sister’s ‘piety’. This transforms into a flashback, where we see a confused Etta (also played by Ruth Sanders) berating Clara for accidentally hurting her. Clara’s terror, undiminished by her mother’s lucid apologies, starkly demonstrates her inability to cope with their situation, as foreshadowed by the opening scene’s doomed rabbit.

Given that the three actors have visited these characters before, it is unsurprising that the performances are uniformly strong. Rochelle Thomas is a complicated Clara, capable of great warmth in spite of her hard countenance, and with a petulant air that barely conceals her fear of inadequacy. She is complimented by Oliver Gully’s Alexander, a likeable stage presence who conveys a sincere love for his wife in spite of her shortcomings. Lilly is played to lonely perfection by Ruth Sanders, a performance underpinned by her sense of injustice. When she appears as Etta, the despair of losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s is almost unbearable to watch.

Yet, for all the play’s nuanced moments, it occasionally lacks subtlety. Its regular use of non-diagetic music was a notable culprit. The play opens with Lucy Schwartz’s ‘Gone Away’, the lyrics of which (“We were never meant to be this damn broken/Words were never meant to be this half-spoken”) foreshadow the theme of poor communication. Three songs from Ingrid Michaelson’s Be OK pointedly mirror the concerns of the play’s characters, whilst Regina Spektor’s ‘Apres Moi’ accompanies a tense game of Scrabble to unintentionally melodramatic effect. Overall, this jarred with the intelligent plotting and natural dialogue.

Music was generally utilised for wordless montages, aiding the passage of time before Clara and Lilly ramped up the tension. Given the strength of characterisation, I would have loved to have seen these scenes played out in full. Indeed, the play’s short running time was most problematic when it came to the ending, which passed minimal judgement on the quality of Lilly and Clara’s future relationship. Having begun to really care for these characters, this left me without a sense of closure. Such ambiguities are part of life, perhaps, but this seems inconsistent with the play’s empathetic core.

Overall, I highly recommend The Backward Fall, which makes for a memorable and moving experience. The Backward Fall runs until 16th August as part of the Camden Fringe