REVIEW: SUNDAY ON THE ROCKS by Theresa Rebeck at Bread and Roses Theatre 26 – 31 May 2024

‘Teresa Rebeck’s play is wide-ranging in its scope and breadth of topics with its relevance to today painfully obvious.’

It’s a Sunday, as it says on the tin, and Elly (Candace Leung) is starting the day off strong with some Scotch…she’s had a tough time though so cut her some slack: she’s pregnant, unhappy about it and considering an abortion. Oh, but it’s also the 90’s and the US: cue moral police, pro-life protestors and a whole can of worms. She is soon joined by her flatmates, Gayle (Rachael Bellis) and Jen (Olivia Gibbs-Fairley) who are each dealing with their own fair share of emotional trauma. It’s nearly a full-house and the conversation naturally turns to the missing link, ‘Jessica’ (Julie Cheung-Inhin). A picture, in broad brushstrokes, is painted through the girls’ anecdotes of this absent flatmate: she’s extremely religious, a lover of wicker furniture and zealously opposed to anything too hedonistic, this includes much of what late-stage capitalism has to offer: she’s boycotting Campbell’s mushroom soup, she doesn’t approve of Jen’s sleeping around and she certainly wouldn’t approve of this very liquid breakfast.

Teresa Rebeck’s play is wide-ranging in its scope and breadth of topics with its relevance to today painfully obvious. Roe Vs Wade was as much an issue then as it is now and it’s not just America that gets a look in; there are the issues that cross cultural divides such as the climate catastrophe, misogyny and the cost-of-living crisis. Take your pick, this play has it covered—or at least mentioned. Time and politics, as we know, does not always move forward.

Nonetheless, despite its wealth of knotty topics and social relevancy, this play, ironically like the decade it sets itself within, lacks urgency. Caught in its self-made maze of issues to be debated, discussed and dissected the effect is that none are fully explored and all bound for the same result—a half-hearted examination and an unsatisfactory ending. Mirroring the intimate confines of the play’s setting; a small living room in a small American flat, the close staging, rather than creating a feeling of immersion and proximity to the characters’ situations, has the unhappy effect of hurtling the audience back to their reality—a Thursday evening in a small theatre above a small pub in South London. Black outs abound and the disjointed gluing together of scenes is placed front and centre for the audiences viewing. Unsurprisingly this results in a lack of emotional investment in the characters and their dilemmas. Overall, there is a feeling that more could be done directorially to successfully allow this play to leap from the stage and into the audiences’ imagination.

SUNDAY ON THE ROCKS at Bread and Roses Theatre 26 – 31 May 2024

Box Office https://www.breadandrosestheatre.co.uk/

Director: Rachael Bellis

Cast: Candace Leung, Rachael Bellis, Olivia Gibbs-Fairley, Julie Cheung-Inhin

Crew: Amber Kilsbie