All those involved in the latest production at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre fully deserved the heartfelt standing ovation they received last night for the bittersweet play, ‘Dear Arabella,’ that left many in the audience teary-eyed and wrapped in thought.
Written by talented playwright, Marie Jones, directed astutely by Matthew McElhinney and acted superbly by Katie Tumelty, Joanne Crawford and Jayne Wisener, the play caressed both hearts and minds, without ever pandering to cheap emotional tricks.
Gazing to my left and right, I saw through my own misty eyes a similar optical condition affecting many of those around me, a deeply-held almost primal response to words on a page transformed brilliantly into a palette of emotions wafting gently back and forth across the stage.
Not only does credit go to all those mentioned above, but also to the technical director, props manager or whomever’s idea it was to use an umbrella, a clothes stand and a feather duster to such mesmerising effect. Go see and marvel.
‘Dear Arabella’ is a play encompassing the belief that we homo sapiens, indeed all sentient creatures, are inextricably interconnected, that we share a common consciousness, an I-Cloud so to speak. That our actions, simple though they may seem, have surprising, often long-lasting, effects on others around us, removed physically though we may be to each other.
I mean, how possibly can a simple flask of tea and a few sandwiches have such long-lasting consequences.
For the first forty-five minutes or so, the audience is left intrigued, probably disheartened, about the dismal lives of three disparate women, each struggling with their own personal burdens, different though they seem, yet similar in so many ways. Teased out slowly, softly in a series of soliloquies, each woman in her own world, the first act ends with a tantalising plot twist that left me annoyed the intermission was a full twenty minutes long so impatient was I to know how their Fates could possibly intermingle.
While the stories of the three women and the circumstances they find themselves in are tragic, to the point of depressing, evoking pathos from even the hardest of hearts, the resurgent spirit that emerges by the end of the evening is truly uplifting.
Working-class Jean feels trapped caring for her ageing mother while her siblings live out dream lives in distant lands. Elsie is married to a man trapped inside his own emotional nightmares. Arabella is trapped alone in a big house refusing to fully accept she’s a wartime widow.
How can they possibly meet, never mind influence each other’s life paths?
Get thyself to the Lyric and find out. I doubt very much you’ll be disappointed.
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