Arts / Bananas and bidding farewell are key themes in beautiful Mareel double bill
A JUNE summer’s night in Mareel provided an opportunity to enjoy two one-act plays, crafted by local authors Kathy Hubbard and Logan Nicolson.
Thursday’s programme was produced by Da Choys, a collective of local artists, and informed us that the plays deal with the themes of death and saying goodbye – so best ready ourselves for an emotional ride.
Entering the theatre however the first sight was more intriguing than sombre. Our curiosity was piqued by the performer sitting cross-legged in a perfect circle of bananas that formed a boundary on the stage.
Logan Nicolson sat throughout silently occupying himself with stacking bananas, in full view of the audience – an effective technique in engaging the audience from the start, a great touch by the play’s director John Haswell.
I found the stacking of the bananas mesmeric and at one point, Nicolson had built a tower of bananas, Jenga-like, an impressive feat of engineering given their curvature.
The play’s title is evocative, Bananaman. Growing up with television programmes from the eighties, I was a regular viewer of the show and recalled how the main character Erik would eat a banana and transform into a slightly obtuse superhero, Bananaman. Would the blue and yellow lycra costume make an appearance?
As the lights descended, Logan was soon up and speaking directly to the audience. The first line set the tone – how many bananas would it take to kill a person? A great opener, making the audience at ease and laughing with him.
Despite the serious topic, you could tell this was going to be faintly ridiculous and the audience was ready to enjoy the ride with him.
He gives us the answer: three bananas, the number coming from an urban myth concocted between friends as a child but which he later disproves as an adult.
As we watch the show, Nicolson constantly consumes an impressive quantity of bananas without any detrimental effect. He tells us that his chosen method for suicide is banana eating but that it will take about a thousand bananas, which may take some time, and that we the audience have somehow been invited to watch him perform this feat and spend his last moments with him.
Why bananas? Simply because he likes them. The audience is therefore part voyeur, part confidante but perhaps also part complicit.
During the course of the play, Nicolson is careful to remain within his circle of banana light. The only thing that leaves is the frequent banana skins that he throws out, revelling in small successes when a skin happened to land in the bin.
Similarly his tone changed throughout as he grappled with his emotions, sometimes chatty, sometimes reflective, other times angry and challenging the audience to consider their role in this ritual – at one point saying talking is pointless and that by talking to us, we are deliberately prolonging his time on the earth, distracting him from his task of finishing himself off by consuming bananas.
The changes of tone and pace carry this play, which is an extended monologue. It does not however feel that it is lacking other characters, especially as we the audience become his listening ear throughout.
Nicolson performs the script with an abundant and engaging energy and the play descends into several different tangents. One of the highlights was watching Nicolson’s multiple ways of peeling bananas, and add to milk to make banana milkshake that he drinks through curly straws connected to a hard hat. The sound of the blender and the visuals made this a comic masterstroke.
Nicolson’s capacity for banana consumption throughout the play is impressive, as is his memory of the monologue. It is no mean feat to keep a solo show going for half an hour, yet he combined the script with the physical comedy effortlessly, which is also a credit to the direction.
We are left with a more hopeful message at the play’s end. It was a very entertaining performance and the audience was with Nicolson from beginning to end. The applause at the end was well merited.
The programme informs us that the next play, Dear Madeleine, is set in a hospice and this is abundantly clear from the stage lay-out. We were going to be set for a rather moving, reflective and sobering journey where there would be only one inevitable outcome.
The opening dialogue however subverts our expectations, a nice touch in the writing (Kathy Hubbard) and the director’s choice (Jacqui Birnie) to have the opening lines as a recorded voice-over.
In this we have Al’s voice (played by John Haswell) reading out a letter inviting his good friend Madeleine to come and visit him in the hospice. Though we learn from the outset that Al has cancer, the tone of the letter was self-effacing and quite light-hearted, not perhaps what we might expect from a play whose subject matter is about saying goodbye to someone terminally ill.
Following the reading we see Al reflecting over his choice of language in the letter with his carer Barry (played by Barnum Smith) and whether he hadn’t been too forward or insistent with his request.
Smith brings out a warmth of character and interest in his patients and gives a performance that is nicely understated – he spends most of his time in the background on his laptop – and only intercedes when is necessary.
When Madeleine arrives at the care home, he tells her how much Al had been looking forward to the visit but to prepare herself for physical changes in her friend.
The reading of the letter helps prepare us for what kind of relationship Al and Madeleine share – one that is open, sincere, tender, a friendship that has endured. It is a friendship with unwritten rules, allowing them to say anything to each other, perhaps things they wouldn’t say to anyone else.
You can tell that these two clearly care deeply about each other and the fondness is sincere and mutual, the tender relationship beautifully played by Haswell and Hubbard.
Hubbard mentioned in the preface that this play is more than a little autobiographical and that she has had to part company with those dear to her. She has felt that she has not done it properly and that she has never found the right words to say goodbye.
Madeleine conveys this same sentiment to Barry who, as the voice of reason, tells her that this is her time to say what she wants to say. There is clearly not much time left and that this may well be the last opportunity.
One of the ways she does this is to give her own eulogy to him while he is still present, reminiscing on everything that he has achieved from childhood through to being a professor, publishing books and even meeting Nelson Mandela, which Al downplays as “only the once”.
From her oration she demonstrates that he has had a rich life and while Al expresses a wish to part with minimal fuss, Madeleine points out how many lives he has touched. Their most painful moments were when they split up as a couple which, although hurtful, seems to have been the right thing to do.
This is the only time that we learn that they had previously been intimate with each other which adds an extra layer to what is an enduring friendship of love and respect, showing the impact each one has had on the life of the other.
As Madeleine plays a game with him, Al again lays still in the chair. Is this the end? We learn from Barry that no, he is only resting but that it will not be long until Al will finally leave his mortal coil.
Madeleine’s main concern is that he won’t be on his own at the end and Barry asserts that if he is on shift, he will stay with Al. As she leaves, she knows this is their last goodbye.
Whilst the tone of the play has been light and playful, the play doesn’t hide from the fact that these are difficult subjects to watch in the theatre and evoke a strong response in the audience.
However, in seeking to address the question how to say goodbye to someone you love, through writing and performing the play Hubbard I think has found the answers.
It was a beautifully written, carefully crafted play, sensitively directed and well acted by the whole cast covering a subject matter that is difficult and that will elicit individual response in everyone. Both plays covered difficult themes in their own unique way but the lasting feeling in both was hope rather than despair.
Well done Da Choys on your productions of Dear Madeleine and Bananaman. I hope we will see more from you soon.
Kevin Briggs
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