Opening a short run at The Space, Isle of Dogs, in the stifling heat of a rare hot London day, the Mad Jack Theatre Company’s revived production of Cherry Eckel's Photographs, is a scorchingly emotional portrayal of three siblings, each consumed by grief.
Sensitive and moving, whilst managing to portray, with endearing humour, the woes of grief and girlhood
Set against the countdown to their grandmother's funeral, the performance weaves together the inner lives of three sisters on the cusp of adulthood, as they navigate the ruins made by grief, pour over old photographs and seek to understand their place in their family and the wider world. Eckel's impressive script, skilfully builds a play from monologues that interweave shared experiences of grief and loneliness, with the essential differences of the siblings.
The opening monologue, performed by Neave Matthews who plays the youngest of the sisters, June, sets the sentimental tone of the performance as she examines a photograph of her grandmother as a much younger woman and questions how much she really knew her. Full of energetic good humour, Matthews vibrantly brings to life the mixed woes of a fourteen year old girl, bouncing effortlessly from the trials and tribulations of young friendships to this seminal moment of grief. She powerfully conveys a sadness that’s not yet found its words for the young character, whose attempts to hold it together merge with emotional outbreaks.
Florence Chevallier too, gives a strong and emotional performance as the middle sibling, Sydney, whose disconnection with their father, school, and what to do with their future is explored with nuanced consideration. Self-assured and sophisticated at the surface, but overwhelmed by loneliness and uncertainty beneath Bea, the eldest sibling played by Rachel Andrews, is an incredibly well-crafted character. Settling into her first term at university amid the news of her grandmother's death, Bea confronts the fear and loneliness that comes with being on the cusp of new independence. Andrews is a strong performer, shown well in a one-sided view of the conversation between her and another fresher, where her pained facial expressions captured perfectly the awkwardness of making friends in a nightclub at eighteen. In one particularly moving scene she is shown unpacking the final box in her uni room, as her siblings, centred on the lower stage in front of her, try to pack up their grandmothers belongings. In an excellent show of staging and choreography, the scene shows the overlapping experience of being drawn back to the past whilst trying to move forward.
It is a play that explores the vulnerability created by death, and how it rekindles memories, alighting them with new meanings and resonance. Throughout the play, there are a number of well directed flash-back scenes, where the cast morph into the younger versions of themselves, as they revisit the memories captured in family photographs.
The small production cast and crew make good use of what is actually quite a big, multilayered stage at The Space, littered with unpacked bags and photographs that get scattered at an increasingly frantic pace throughout the performance. A fun effect was the use of projected text conversations, that showed very life-like interactions between the siblings. Not only did these help with the pacing of the performance, as the texts shifted from humorous messages about stolen jackets to conversations about funeral outfits, but they helped bulk out the dynamics between the sisters.
This play about three very different young adults at different stages of life and their different experiences of grief, captures in the interweaving of monologues a quiet sort of love that exists between siblings who’ve shared a childhood together. It’s sensitive and moving, whilst managing to portray, with endearing humour, the woes of grief and girlhood.
