Review: ELEGY, Donmar Warehouse, April 27 2016

Nick Payne's latest production Elegy is a short 70-minute piece, which raises complex and emotional issues. Following on from his previous work Constellations, which won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play, Payne's plot focuses on Lorna and her partner Carrie as they struggle with an unnamed disease which effects Lorna's brain.

In the opening scene we meet Lorna (Zoe Wanamaker) and her wife Carrie (Barbara Flynn), 60-somethings who have been married for 20 years. Lorna treats Carrie as though she is a stranger and the audience soon finds out why as Payne takes us back to a few years earlier. We soon discover that Lorna has a degenerative brain disease and the reason she treats her wife as a stranger is due to the operation; her doctor Miriam (Nina Sosanya) literally removed 20-plus years of memories and feelings in order to cure her. The play looks at the painful process the couple go through in order to decide to go ahead with the surgery. Lorna doesn't want to risk losing all of her memories but Carrie would rather Lorna have a life, even if that means living without her.

While the disjointed speech and broken sentences do become tiresome after a while, the production is moving. Josie Rourke's direction is delicate, while Tom Scutt's set is simple, with just an encased tree at the back of the stage and several chairs dotted around. Both Flynn and Wanamaker are superb in their roles. Wanamaker perfectly captures the frustration, anger and sadness that is inevitable given her condition, while Flynn's heartache at seeing her partner's health steadily decline is devastating to witness.

However, the production is simply not long enough. We don't become fully emotionally invested in the characters' predicament as Payne doesn't give us enough time to get to know them. This is a fantastic production, but I just wish it was a bit longer - one hour simply isn't long enough.

Photo Credit: Johan Persson

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