REVIEW: Stay Here And Die With Me at The Bridge House Theatre, 9 April – 13 April 2024

“Grand in emotional scale, epic in imagination” ★★★ ½

With the help of a very capable cast, the multi-talented Aidan Parsons (writer/director) has created a terrifying post-apocalyptic world that inflates its black box constraints into a hellish dystopia – and you can’t deny it’s one hell of a title. From the off, we meet Mackenzie (Charles Ison) in a mysterious underground facility, where he begins a rapid descent into madness, misery, and suicidality, prompted by an evacuation notice giving the occupants thirty minutes to flee. He lives in this windowless ‘pod’ with his partner, Charlie (Ericka Posadas), who hasn’t yet reached the same depths of despair, and which makes for an interesting bit of drama: her instinct to survive, her desire to die with her love. It’s a good setup, given life by a very atmospheric set.

This conflict is smartly spliced with flash-forward scenes, in which Charlie, having clearly (and agonisingly) made her choice, is now sharing a new pod with Ellis, portrayed deliciously by Molly Cutter, who gives a stand-out performance of nuanced subtly here. Ellis is older and more experienced in this world, and their scenes together provide some lovely moments of light relief: great writing, illuminated by Cutter’s expert delivery and comic timing.

In the lead-up to the inevitable, Mackenzie’s fate and Charlie’s future, there are some very insightful dramatisations of the amazing adaptability of human beings, the ability to find joy in the little things, which, I suppose, is the ultimate message of the play. Survival, finding light in darkness. And it must be said that Parsons’s writing is impressive: the pacing is consistent, it avoids cliché and exposition, and there are some nice, natural monologues. It builds its world in a way that doesn’t patronise or spoon-feed its audience, and this alone makes it a very good piece of writing, growing intrigue throughout the show, leaving just enough to the imagination, and explaining just enough to be satisfying.

The cast are solid and professional, though there are a few moments of 0-100 intensity that undermined it a bit, as they just weren’t needed, and an overreliance on this technique tends to be the hallmark of quite amateur productions, which this otherwise most certainly wasn’t. That said, in a larger playing space, these exchanges might not be so jarring. On the whole though, the actors’ dedication and Parsons’s visionary direction give this dystopia its believable three dimensions and its story its heart.

Though the ending doesn’t quite pack the punch I wanted, or think it deserved, it was close, and it still delivers a satisfying show overall. I think ultimately Parsons has created something grand in emotional scale, epic in imagination, and commendable in its ambition. Deep down, it’s a hopeful drama set in a scary world; and dystopia or not, I think that’s something we can all relate to.

Stay Here And Die With Me by Aidan Parsons

Directed by Aidan Parsons

The Bridge House Theatre, 9 April – 13 April 2024

Box Office: https://thebridgehousetheatre.co.uk/shows/stay-here-and-die-with-me/

Reviewed by Alix Owen