Fiction is an act of fact shaming. Invented narrative has a magic that can embarrass mere recount. I begin my response to Draw Two this way because it’s a one actor play, and there’s been a disappointing trend recently to reduce this genre to confessional theatre.
Now there can be great confessional theatre, but it has its place (and often that place is in a support group or a prayer meeting.)
Draw Two by Meg Goodfellow is a superbly crafted piece of dramatic fiction, an inheritor of the grand tradition of storytelling. Something has happened to Riley’s twin sister Mia, and she must return to her hometown to collect her little nephew. Goodfellow follows the sage advice of make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait. And though the show’s only 70 minutes (which seems to slip by much faster) the audience is offered a journey that’s both funny and deeply moving.
It’s a story of loss, regret and moving forward. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, considering it’s told by one of a pair of twins, it’s about identity. Commandeered by contemporary political discourse, identity is a word in danger of petrifying into a stone tool we use to beat each other. But Goodfellow’s beautiful script playfully acknowledges the concept’s limitations, reminding us that love dissolves all the barriers that corral identity into isolation.
I began by unfavourably comparing recount to narrative, and Goodfellow makes the most of the narrative form’s potential, moving back and forth through time in a perpetually intriguing manner. She also avoids narrative’s great temptation: the end that resolves all problems; the end, that by slamming shut, leaves us feeling we’ve enjoyed a mere fantasy that belongs back in its box, rather than a fiction that will continue to reverberate through our reality.
Director Lauren Bennett textures the piece magnificently. The use of projection, built from visual art by Laura Hayley, is gently and gorgeously evocative, and one of the most effective uses of the technology I’ve seen in theatre.
But Bennett’s master stroke is casting. Georgia McGinness as Riley is phenomenal. Goodfellow’s use of the vernacular is brilliant and McGinness inhabits it flawlessly. McGuiness works without props, her splendid control of movement creating the world of the play. She also creates each of the characters who surround Riley – her mother, her lover, an old flame of her sister’s, a tradesman, her nephew – all through subtle changes in voice and nuanced movement. It’s an extraordinary performance.
Paul Gilchrist
Draw Two by Meg Goodfellow
At old Fitz until 17 Nov, as the Late Show
Image by Georgia Brogan
Theatre Red 