You’d think a play about a terminally ill child would be an eggshell-treading exercise. But a writer of Lucy Caldwell’s sensitivity turns all that on its head. She does this by giving the voice and control to Sophie, the sick child.
So nothing is off limits, neither the rage nor the “bad stuff” of the bone cancer that has forced Sophie, her sister and mother back to her grandmother’s flat in Birmingham and an orthodox way of life the girls have never known. It’s a countdown to death that Sophie rattles off like flipping through a desk diary, and every belief is in the melting pot.
Imogen Doel is the angry child in every comically pulled face, every hunched stance, every defensive movement of her wiry and vulnerable body. It is an outstanding performance. The drama operates in Sophie’s time and in real time and, like Peter Pan, she’s already on the outside looking in. Watching her decline is deeply poignant, but there’s nothing mawkish about any of it because Sophie doesn’t allow it.
The cast has been shrewdly chosen. Doel is strongly supported by Jayne Wisener as her sister, Calliope, Amanda Ryan as the restless mother, Judy, and Jane Lowe as Daphne, the churchgoing grandmother. When they’re all curled up on Sophie’s bed, they can mock the easy slipping-away of Beth in Louisa May Alcott’s Good Wives and so can we. This brave, beautiful and quite extraordinary play is Rachel Kavanaugh’s final production as artistic director of Birmingham REP.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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