Review: DEAR ANNIE, I HATE YOU, Riverside Studios

Sam is a football-loving, tomboyish young woman with a lifetime of fun ahead of her. That’s until a violent accident on the pitch puts an end to the carefree part of her youth. All of a sudden, her days are ruled by a mercurial new enemy, Annie the aneurysm, who threatens to burst at any time. Faced with the choice of getting a risky surgery or leaving Annie to her own devices, Sam Ipema ponders the moments that change the trajectory of your story in a remarkable multimedia production directed by James Meteyard.

Vintage television sets sit on short pillars, displaying old home videos and interjections from Sam’s family and friends, while long neon tubes feed them with light. A gripping narration starts, with Ipema drawing the personal into the universal in a sweet (and surprisingly educational) rundown of how the brain processes life.

Her point of view is informed by highly rational, doting parents and an adoptive brother with Down Syndrome, while

her first cruel awakening happens when playing superheroes with him stops making her cool with her classmates. We learn that the brain perceives social rejection as a threat to our lives. This initial chunk of text establishes a finely tuned balance between dark comedy, individual trauma, and objective information.

Ipema’s writing is colloquial, striking in its almost confessional style. Armed with effective storytelling, she toys with the tone of the piece throughout. Between the aplomb of the science and the off-the-wall humour, Dear Annie, I Hate You is relentlessly captivating. We become the neutral companions that contrast her fake friends and, further down the line, Annie herself.

Eleanor House bursts (pun completely intended) onto the stage as the back-talking, attention-seeking, caustic, taunting manifestation of Sam’s aneurysm. She is a sprite who brutally invades the scenes, taking over whenever it suits her. A mesmerising performer, she's an excellent entertainer in her goofy costumes and pink cast (the performer broke her wrist before press night, but you couldn’t pick out any changes made to accommodate this). She points out all the destructive coping mechanisms that Sam undertook as a 20-something who didn’t know how to take the news of a life-threatening condition.

Once they’re together, it’s precisely regulated chaos. The morbid interest in Sam’s unique situation comes as rude interpolations from the TVs while her parents try to help. Confronted with her own mortality and the possibility that people might be okay with her passing, Sam spirals, engaging in the full array of activities that a person with a cardiovascular disease should absolutely avoid.

Ipema gives us a recap in an energetic, alarming sequence impressively lit by Hugo Dodswort (who’s also on set design). This aggressive dynamism is followed by an arresting reckoning: the aftermath of the operation is horrifying and particularly affecting. Ipema wraps up this rollercoaster of emotions with shocking tenderness, and a touching speech that accepts there’s strength in the loss of control is the cherry on top of an enthralling, intimate, and often inappropriately funny play.

Dear Annie, I Hate You runs at Riverside Studios until 1 June.