In writing this review, I’ve allowed the most time to pass I ever have between seeing a show and putting my response on the page.
This is partly because of that pesky thing called Life, which with annoying persistence tries to sideline Art.
But it’s also because – by the time I saw So Young at the Old Fitz – the whole run had sold out. (Though do check for wait lists – tix may become available.)
When responding to theatre I try to write in a way that doesn’t suggest that the producing company has simply outsourced its marketing – but Outhouse’s production of Douglas Maxwell’s play is brilliant.
So Young is the story of forty-something Milo finding love again after the early death of his wife. His longtime friends Davie and Liane are shocked to find this new love, Greta, is only 20 years old.
We live in a culture obsessed with demographic divisions. Each one of us is labelled and firmly put in our box. This superb play is about two of the most dominant of these devilish divisions: youth versus age and male versus female. But it’s also about the only demographic division that ultimately matters: the quick versus the dead.
Under the direction of Sam O’Sullivan, the play blazes with humour and heart.
As Liane, Ainslie McGlynn’s performance is magnificent, beautifully boiling and bubbling with the grief that masquerades as anger.
As Davie, Jeremy Waters gives us a splendid portrait of blokeish bonhomie, with that longing for pleasant peace presented in all its complexity. Is it wisdom? Or is it weakness?
Henry Nixon as Milo offers a bewitching bewilderment in the face of Life’s two greatest mysteries – Death and Love.
Aisha Aidara as Greta is gloriously youthful. She marvellously captures youth’s perceived pitfalls – its social naivety, its careless certainty – while all the time radiating courage.
And courage and its close cousin compassion are the qualities most needed by those of us still on this side of the only division that matters.
Paul Gilchrist
So Young by Douglas Maxwell
Produced by Outhouse Theatre Company
At the Old Fitz until Nov 22
Image by Richard Farland
Theatre Red 
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