Does anyone know exactly the right thing to say and do after someone loses a child? Friendships are tested and close relationship come to breaking point in the emotionally fuelled play Staying Alive.

Mary (Saskia Connolly) son has died and is attempting to navigate her way through the grieving process. Jack (Jonathan Buckingham) and his wife Jenn (Isabel Daly) try their hardest to.be there for Mary, dinners, invitations and a New Year gathering hopeful that the old “Mary” will come back to them.

However, grief and trauma change people and the person they once knew will be changed forever. They also have to learn with their grief alongside hers. It’s complex and complicated as anyone who has navigated through grief will recognise.

Mary is simply Staying Alive long enough while she learns to live again in a world without her son and finds a new path to follow. How do you stop being a parent abruptly, without warning?

Her outlook on the world changes when she employs the builder Nathan (Christopher Llyod-James) whose strong Black Country roots and direct approach to life and conversations are exactly what she needs, even if Mary doesn’t realise it immediately. Although it’s unsure if Nathan is hiding a dark side to his character.

Director Olivia Charkrabory appears to have given the actors the space to feel their way through their roles in a touching and sometimes frustrating manner. Mary is often on the verge of tears through a range of underlying emotions which grief takes you by surprise at times.

The multifunctional stage design by Dina Benderra allowed the houses to split between Mary and Jack and Jenn’s clinical minimalist home when the “wine warmer” was the conversational piece between guests. I thought it was an absolute waste of money, which I guess is the point of it being in the play to offer mundane conversation and deflect from the sadness and grief.

At just over two hours long there’s some editing required as it felt “bulked out” unnecessarily in places and didn’t have a bearing on the storyline.

For more information about Staying Alive please use the link below.

Three Stars.

https://www.towertheatre.org.uk/staying-alive/

Cast
Mary : Saskia Connolly
Jack: Jonathan Buckingham
Jenn: Isabel Daly
Sarah/Social Worker/Administrator: Jacky Rowland
Will: Simon A. Brown
Nathan: Christopher Lloyd-James
Portia: Fiona Masterson

With Archimedes Weston as the voice of Tom.

Wednesday 4 – Saturday 7 June and
Tuesday 10 – Saturday 14 June at 7.30 pm.
Matinées on Saturdays 7 and 14 June at 3 pm.

At the Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington

Running Time: 2 hrs (including a 15 min interval)

How quickly should we move on from tragedy when it starts to inconvenience other people? Is there a time limit? Should there be one? Is it relative to the nature of the tragedy itself, or one’s ability to cope?