Imagine you were a young woman in Damascus starting a new relationship and your partner decides to join in the war leaving you behind to face the consequences and probably to flee overseas with all the risks that that involves. Then because you are a young white theatre group from the Contemporary Theatre course at E15 acting school, set this scenario in London with overseas being France. This talented young group have managed to bring something new to this problem that vexes us all by making it local and accessible. The journey through the play, despite its inevitable end in tragedy, is lively and entertaining.
An excellent performance by Gabrielle Shepherd as Elizabeth the main protagonist “who is very bad at packing” is the core of this interesting play. Her relationship with her partner is very quickly established with a touching first scene involving feeding the ducks. It is a classic romantic western relationship placed in London but with unusual consequences. There are some wonderful theatrical moments with the cast running in patterns that are beautifully directed and a joy to watch. Looking at the publicity photographs I don’t think we saw the full design of Sara Blondal at the Wardrobe but the use of old clothes was clever, effective and dynamic as from time to time the clothes could be thrown in and out of the constantly present symbolic old suitcase. The cast was lively and well directed by Dimitris Chimonas. The pace never dropped and included both humour and pathos. The cast managed to portray the way in which relationships are all-consuming but also they caught those trivial moments of silliness.
The obscurity in the plot meant that I didn’t realise exactly what was going on until the end, and I wondered whether it might have been helpful for the story to be a little clearer from the start. I was also not sure whether Elizabeth’s pregnancy was phantom or not, as Ella Cook who played a dog at the beginning became excellent as the concerned daughter of a mother having some sort of breakdown. Nevertheless you were aware all the way through that something important and extreme was going on; the lack of clarity was possibly deliberate.
As the publicity says, Leftovers mixes drama and physical theatre and I would thoroughly recommend a visit to see this extremely brave performance. ★★★★☆ Keith Erskine 2nd September 2016
