The Nightmare Room, Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne

The Nightmare Room

Devonshire Park Theatre

Eastbourne

Tue 26 Jun 2018 to Sat 30 Jun 2018

(show seen 26 June)

Cast

Catherine - Sarah Wynne Kordas Paisley

Helen - Angie Smith

A simple set is seen : 2 small white plastic chairs, 1 small white plastic table, 2 glasses, 1 glass jug filled with water, 1 small bottle of poison and a room with plain white panelled walls 

A simple scene is set : 2 women, 1 locked room and 1 bottle of poison. Basically Helen has betrayed her best friend Catherine by stealing her fella and Cathy is apparently now out for the ultimate revenge

As you may have gathered from the above this is not your average play. It is contemporary and very different from any murder mystery you may have seen before.

In fact you're not even sure there is going to be a murder... that's the mystery.

It is minimalist in every sense. I'm guessing the production team must have been delighted with the cost of the set? It goes to show you don't have to spend a fortune for all dramas. Once you know the background to the story you can actually understand why such a simplistic set works well in this case. 

This play is more about the relationship and interaction between the two characters than the set itself. With the background not being over complicated you are somehow drawn more into what is actually going on with the cast.

As the play progresses we see scenes not only from the present day in the nightmare room but also flashbacks from the past so that we can establish how the women got themselves into their current predicament.

If you are of a very nervous disposition, especially if you have health problems such as heart issues, which may be exasperated by being made to "jump" regularly you should be aware this happens a LOT. It's not down to any on stage action but each scene finishes with a very loud, no VERY LOUD, noise and the theatre being plunged into darkness. With a mainly elderly Eastbourne audience I know this part wasn't to everybody's liking. A voice behind me heard to say "If that happens one more time I'm going go $*!!£@# mad !"

I know why this is done and it does work given the modern nature of the play, but I'm not convinced it needs to be quite as loud as it is.

I preferred it when Catherine and Helen were moving about rather than sitting at the table. In front of me, sitting half way back in the central stalls, a big guy with a seemingly overly large head eclipsed my view of the table. His ears covered the chairs, obliterating the actors. I must have irritated the person behind me because my head was swinging from side to side continuously to see what was going on. I found this quite amusing in an irritating sort of way.

Acting wise I thought it was excellent. These 2 actresses have to switch between multiple scenes in an instant. These have not only continuous extremely involved and complicated scripts but also dramatic changes in emotion and personality to portray. It can't be easy to switch from raging anger to angelic niceness in the blink of an eye whilst still trying to remember your lines but both the cast deliver this flawlessly.

As with all good murder mysteries there are twist and turns aplenty as we get to the final outcome. I found myself with many theories of the ending as it progressed... all useless of course.

What did the audience think? Well that's the odd thing, I really have no idea. At the end of a play you can usually here comments such as "that was great" or even "never again". One word I did hear describing the production several times over though was "weird".

Well if weird means different then I'm on the same wavelength here. Weird didn't necessarily mean a criticism, but that they had just seen a production different from anything they had seen in the past. But if my partner is a good example of your average non regular theatregoer, well she said it was good to see something different (or weird perhaps) for a change.

I agree with those sentiments. Productions like this do make you think and talk more more than the run of the mill stuff, often long after the show. I'm glad I got to see it.... Weird and wonderful !

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