Four funerals and a wedding.
Well, not exactly. There are no funerals (on stage). There is a wedding (slightly off stage).
But, despite the humour, the atmosphere is thick with loss.
Robert Allan’s deeply moving play is about the struggle between the acknowledgement of grief and the quest for growth.
With two concurrent time periods, the play is a cleverly structured dialogue between the past and the present.
In the past, we follow the developing relationship between Brent and Adam. Brent (Ryan Henry) performs as a drag queen. With the help of effervescent Zoe (Emily McGowan) and crotchety but lovable Phil (Roger Smith), Brent raises money for those battling the newly recognized Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. A charming bumbler, Adam (Oliver Rynn), arrives. The attraction is obvious, but he’s out of his depth. There’s a war going on, and Adam – like so many of the population – has not caught up with the reality.
Photo by Clare Hawley
In the present, we follow Adam and Zoe twenty odd years on. Played engagingly by Cherilyn Price and Leo Domigan, their friendship has survived, but beyond the fun banter, there’s real tension.
Clever direction by Julie Baz highlights both the continuities and discontinuities between the two time periods and so brings to the fore the fundamental question of the piece: What is, What should be, What can be, our relationship with the past?
Both funny and touching, Through a Beaded Lash is a powerful call both to remember the dead and to remember to live.
And it’s a new play and I congratulate The Depot on that.
I began with a glib reference. Four funerals……..
In the 80’s, 90’s and today, here and worldwide, if only the toll was so low.
It’s more like forty million.
Veronica Kaye
Through a Beaded Lash By Robert Allan
The Depot Theatre til 12 Dec
Tix and info here
Theatre Red 
This sounds amazing. And I have more than an entire week in which to find a night to see it.