This show really intrigued me. The Fringe brochure blurb was suitably ambiguous, only hinting towards the play's theme being the exploration of nostalgia. In essence the plot, though you might not realise there is one, centres around the life of 'Lily'. We follow her from birth to death in, what could have been, a poignant piece of theatre looking at the journey of life but unfortunately, all poignancy has been thrown out of the window here.The cast of three females give good performances, you can really see that they are doing their best with the material, but the direction is absurd and leaves the whole thing feeling confusing and farce-like. There are some tragic moments in this woman's life, particularly her abuse as a child at the hands of her stepmother. To be fair, this moment is handled well; the mother and father being portrayed by puppets, the narrative changing to a sinister, fairytale-like chant as the child is slapped, but the next scene eradicates any sympathy that may have begun to muster in the audience. There is some fantastic lighting effects to set the scene as being a battlefield. The girls don aprons. Obviously, 'Lily' was a nurse during the war. The script becomes touching as it describes the way 'Lily' falls in love with a badly burned patient, tending to him every day, never seeing his face until she removes his bandages. Heart-rending, right? Well, don't worry, you wont feel any of that pesky empathy for much longer than that because then, the direction has the cast peeling bedsheets off to reveal male blow up dolls that they writhe around with, kissing and licking them in a grotesque manner.In short, any moments of tenderness are rendered ridiculous with bizarre physical inserts like dances around a coffin or that simply horrendous blow up doll fiasco. It may be bearable but for the fact that these inserts drag on for what seems like an age and only serves to make the audience uncomfortable and fidgety. The whole thing needs balance. The girls do a fantastic job at portraying their roles, no matter how ludicrous, and should be praised, especially for the hilarious old gossips they depict gabbing around a table. But there again, the shock we get listening to them relate the sad news that 'Lily' now has Alzheimer's disease is lessened by the scene dragging on for too long after it, lapsing back into the 'safe zone' of comedy.It could be one hell of a show, with no dry eyes left in the audience and every single person going home and calling their Grandmothers, Mothers and oldest friends. That's what nostalgia encourages for me. This piece, however, instilled absolutely no feeling of nostalgia in me at all. I had no sympathy for the sad story of 'Lily' and it didn't in any way leave a lasting impression which, with better direction and a little more tenderness towards the script, it most definitely could. It could be one of those shows that really makes you think. All it left me wondering was how I could get that 45 minutes of MY life back.
