Unafraid to show the peaks and troughs of getting over an upsetting event, TheForgottenMoose Theatre Company put on an endearing performance of their original piece:
It has lots of laughs, but lacks gravitas when it is time to get serious
The Play tells the story of two flatmates. Sam is unable to move on from the past and write a new, exciting play for the National Theatre, so flatmate Lewis tries to get him out of his funk anyway he can.
As a duo, Sam Stay (Sam) and Lewis Chance (Lewis) bounce off each other in the comic scenes and their friendship is depicted with high energy. Their characters are almost caricatures, with Sam’s seriousness and sadness balancing the dopey smile and comedy of Lewis. Their comic timing together is deeply amusing, particularly when Lewis tries to think through the process man must have gone through to realise that we could get milk from a cow. However, while their comedy is strong, the melodrama seems to be strained with line delivery faltering and the actor’s portrayals being significantly weaker when serious.
The opening scene, as the two move through a ‘year in the life’ – with Sam remaining stuck in his seat while Lewis goes out celebrating Christmas, New Year, Halloween – is a strong idea but is not executed smoothly enough and feels quite forced. In addition to this, among the very long, and quite uncomfortable pauses between scenes, we are treated to an amusing portrayal of the two characters getting drunk. While it is quite funny to see them ‘lipsync’ an apt section from the musical Hamilton (including the line ‘why do you write like you’re running out of time’), the scene is quite clumsy as they struggle to go from one ‘stage’ of drunkenness to the other.
This is a sweet play about a friendship and how the two very different characters live together. It has lots of laughs, but lacks gravitas when it is time to get serious.
