After Sunday at Bush Theatre
We begin with a jarring technical display, as fragmentary, staccato sounds and lights usher the principal cast onstage. We could be witnessing a collective breakdown or possession. The three men onstage appear caught halfway between dance and electric shock, their slow gyrations underscored by the anxiously hopeful phone conversation being held at the stage’s forefront by a woman in mysterious medical attire. It’s a deliberately abrasive beginning, and one that stands in stark opposition to the gentle, intimate four-person drama to follow. The woman in question is soon seen at work, warmly supervising the three men in a clinical kitchen setting, nonetheless bedecked with different Caribbean flags, and it is here that all of the action of Sophia Griffin and director Corey Campbell’s play – a co-production of Bush Theatre and Belgrade Theatre – will unfold.
The dynamics are sketched swiftly and efficiently: Ty (Corey Weekes) is the young joker who teases his fellows half-affectionately, half-antagonistically, much to the chagrin of anxious, estranged father of two Daniel (Darrel Bailey) and Leroy (David Webber), the withdrawn old timer who equally embraces and rejects the father figure role Ty seeks from him. The unifying force of this implosive unit is Naomi (Aimee Powell), the occupational therapist striving to open the guarded men up through communal Caribbean cooking sessions. It’s a disarming set-up that sees the actors cooking live onstage, and one almost wishes After Sunday – a play with no shortage of heartache and despair – made more time for process; for the specific, therapeutic act of preparing and presenting the meals meant to reconnect these men to themselves and each other.
Still, the four protagonists face enough material and internal obstacles that there is sense in this. Catharsis may be what Naomi hopes to provide the men – residents of a secure hospital – but when circumstances keep them separate from the families with whom they long to re-connect, it’s a result that remains elusive. Good-humoured personality clashes rapidly become bitter conflicts, and Naomi finds herself the keeper of the peace, as well as of the dim but undying hopes that keep the three coming to the sessions in the first place. There is a keen sense that, through experience, each of the three cooks and Naomi herself have learned to seek small victories, but know that these alone are not enough to hold off the encroaching despair.
The cast convey this with tenderly felt, observant performances, with Webber the undeniable standout as Leroy, revealing the fragile hope of a man who has lived on a ward for more of his life than not, and who fears that hope more than anything. On Webber’s face, we see this isn’t solely due to the potential for disappointment, but the thought that, were his life to change, it would mean the loss of the only life he knows. Meanwhile, Powell threads a tricky line, maintaining Naomi’s patience and compassion while showing in select, private moments that it is not unlimited, and Weekes and Bailey do not shy away from the volatility underlying the sunnier dispositions Ty and Daniel work to maintain.
In conjunction with Griffin’s economical character work, these performances are affecting enough to throw into harsher relief the more self-conscious flourishes of Campbell’s production. The theatrics of After Sunday’s opening are replicated at various intervals, but while Ali Hunter’s lighting effects – along with Xana’s thunderous sound work – are as jarring as no doubt intended, these intervals offer little illumination. Are the dance-like, choreographed movements of the men meant to illustrate their inner torment? Their desperate closeness to and distance from their goals? More intriguing and direct are the bursts of static that fill in for the hospital board members who thwart Naomi’s ambitions, creating a chillingly depersonalised vision of institutional indifference. Still, the results ultimately offer little insight that the performers themselves are not already providing. Wisely, After Sunday largely trusts them to the sobering end, offering them – and the audience – no promise of consolation.
Ultimately, in spite of some misguided stylised interludes, After Sunday remains a sturdily performed drama that maintains a gentle, unpatronising empathy for its subjects. Perhaps most valuably, it leavens their despair with natural character comedy (a swipe at Aerosmith proves both amusing and more illustrative of individual character than you’d expect), and a persuasive argument for the resilience of hope.
Thomas Messner
Photos: Nicola Young
After Sunday is at Bush Theatre until 20th December 2025. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
RSS