Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)
★★★★☆ Beautifully poignant
Traverse: Fri 10 – Sat 11 Feb
Review by Allan Wilson
The Raw Material / Vanishing Point production of the world premiere of Ramesh Meyyappan’s Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance) is a beautifully poignant contribution to this year’s Manipulate Festival.
The play focuses on the difficulties faced by an elderly, deaf man as he struggles to communicate with non-signing staff and meet the challenges of dementia.
A scene from Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance). Pic: Pic Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
Love Beyond opens with Harry (skilfully played by the author, Ramesh Meyyappan) arriving in a care home. He is profoundly deaf and is a skilled communicator using British Sign Language but is developing dementia. Sadly his principal care assistant, May, has only rudimentary signing skills so they struggle to communicate.
May (beautifully played by Elicia Daly) is empathetic, works hard at trying to communicate with Harry and gradually improves her signing. But as May becomes an increasingly proficient signer, Harry’s dementia begins to take away his signing skills, leading to more and more frustration as their communication breaks down.
The audience, which includes many members of the deaf community, shares their frustration. The non-signers struggle to follow Harry’s signing, while those with a hearing impairment find it hard to understand what May is saying. This makes it difficult to follow every nuance of the communication on stage, but this doesn’t really matter as everything is pretty clear by the end of the play.
The staging is a piece of creative genius, particularly involving the direction of Matthew Lenton, and the work of the design team. Becky Minto’s set uses three large wheeled panels behind the main action, lit by Simon Wilkinson.
mirrors
At first these act as giant mirrors, reflecting the action at the front of the stage, but at other times they become transparent, allowing Harry to look back on his life, seeing his younger self (Rinkoo Barbaga) in a loving relationship with his wife (Amy Kennedy).
Occasionally the young couple step out from behind the panels to take centre stage, notably in a beautiful scene when they sit together at a table. Towards the end, the panels become both reflective and transparent, creating stunning combinations of images from behind and in front of the panels.
Love Beyond is a totally engaging play on many levels, combining a focus on communication difficulties, coping with dementia and the many frustrations that arise from these conditions, with a visually creative production. Definitely not to be missed.
Running time: One hour and 10 minutes (no interval)
Traverse Theatre (as part of Manipulate), 10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED
Fri 10/Sat 11 Feb 2023
Evenings: 8pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance) on tour:
Tron Theatre, 63 Trongate, Glasgow, G1 5HB
Fri 17/Sat 18 Feb 2023
Evenings: 7.30pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
Vanishing Point Website: https://vanishing-point.org
Twitter: @VPointTheatreCo
Facebook: @Vanishing.Point.Theatre
Instagram: @vanishingpointvanishingpoint
Manipulate website: www.manipulatefestival.org/
Twitter: @manipulatefest
Facebook: @puppetanimationscotland
Instagram: @puppetanimascot
A scene from Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance). Pic: Pic Tommy Ga-Ken Wan
ENDS
