Review: IN OTHER WORDS, Arcola Theatre

“That’s life”, sings Frank Sinatra over the sound system, in just one of the many hits from his back catalogue that makes up the soundtrack to In Other Words. And he has a point: this understated drama about the slow progress of Alzheimer’s disease, which returns to the Arcola after an acclaimed 2023 run (and an award-winning French translation), is a heartbreaking paean to the parts of life that we can’t avoid.

To say this is a play ‘about Alzheimer’s’ possibly does it a disservice – In Other Words is really a story of a marriage, between Arthur (Matthew Seager, who also wrote the play) and his wife Jane (Lydia White). Both characters are played with tenderness and candour, and the audience receive more than a few glimpses of their dynamic before the onset of Arthur’s illness, his gregariousness perfectly counterbalancing Jane’s dry, no-nonsense wit.

This intimate tale is suitably staged in one of the Arcola’s smaller studios, where the audience feel invited into the couple’s living room. At the same time, there’s also a peculiar but fitting distance between audience and characters – we learn precious little biographical information about either character, which allows their relationship with each other and with Arthur’s advancing illness to be the sole focus. Similarly, though Sinatra’s music and certain costuming details place Arthur and Jane in the ‘Greatest Generation’ age group, there’s thankfully no room here for any tacky 1940s nostalgia, so the couple’s experiences feel truly timeless.

Alzheimer’s is hardly uncharted territory in culture, but In Other Words tackles it in a way that resists stereotyping, with a non-linear structure that allows Arthur (as well as Jane) to reflect directly to the audience on his early lapses in memory, and wonder frustratedly if he should have seen the signs sooner. Arthur’s confusion and paranoia is captured in a vivid visual style, with frenetic lighting and sound design allowing the audience a brief look inside his increasing lack of control over his own mind.

Seager, who was initially inspired by theatre workshops he ran as a student in dementia care homes, is impressive both as writer and actor, his demeanour transforming effortlessly from youthful earnestness, to flashes of terror as his illness advances, to near-robotic calmness. Jane is pleasingly also permitted by the script to run the full, realistic gamut of emotional reactions to becoming her husband’s primary caregiver.

The non-linear structure doesn’t always work: Arthur and Jane’s interjections to the audience occasionally overexplain what should already have been made clear by the couple’s interactions with each other. Indeed, some of the best scenes, including a quietly dread-inducing sequence of memory tests at the hospital, follow a more conventional structure.

Given how central Sinatra’s music (and especially "Fly Me To The Moon",  from whose lyrics the show gets its title) is to the couple’s love story – and the fact that the show is funded in part by the Utley Foundation’s campaign for the use of music in dementia treatment – it’s also a shame the songs aren’t used a little more inventively, instead of chiefly to mark transitions between past and present.

These complaints hardly seem to matter, though. In Other Words is a story written and acted with the care it deserves, and while it will feel all too familiar to some, it also allows us to examine its subject with fresh eyes, by granting Alzheimer’s patients and those who care for them the space to comment on their experiences, in their own words.

In Other Words runs at the Arcola Theatre until 24 May