Little Light, Orange Tree - theatre review

Alice Birch’s intense and at times startling play is a highly strung family drama in which the domestic tension is palpable
Trapped: Yolanda Kettle as Clarissa (Picture: Alastair Muir)
Henry Hitchings6 March 2015

Early in Alice Birch’s intense and at times startling play we learn that Teddy (Paul Rattray) has torn out the staircase of his beachfront house to let more light in. His partner Alison, invested with impressive sourness by Lorna Brown, is livid — and becomes more so on finding out that he is making fish pie rather than the lamb she’s expecting.

When Alison’s sister Clarissa arrives, soaking and heavily pregnant, the scene is set for a highly strung family drama. Clarissa’s equally drenched partner Simon (Paul Hickey) makes an unexpected entrance and tries to act as a mediator, but the other three rebuff his attempts to fathom their peculiar rituals.

There’s more than a touch here of Edward Albee’s savage Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Alison won’t let Clarissa break free from the straitjacket of her personal history, and Yolanda Kettle finely evokes the pain of being trapped in an identity she’s desperate to relinquish.

Although David Mercatali’s tightly focused production ensures the domestic tension is palpable, the symbolism is heavy-handed. The play holds back information for too long, and the monologues that contain key revelations strain for a degree of gravity they don’t achieve. But Birch has her own jagged way of being perceptive about sibling rivalry and the hostility that can result from grief.

Until March 7 (020 8940 0141, orangetreetheatre.co.uk)

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