REVIEW: Downs With Love – Eastwood Park Theatre, Giffnock
Cutting Edge Theatre’s Downs with Love, explores love and disability and the complex and challenging problems that ensue.
Beth (Abigail Brydon) has Down’s Syndrome. She lives a simple, independent life. Helping with this independence is her new support worker Tracy (Rachel Still). The pair become friends and Tracy expands Beth’s horizon by taking her to the local pub with her to watch singer Mark (Calum Barbour). Beth falls head over heels for Mark, but Mark is in love with Tracy who loves them both. Boundaries are crossed that drive a wedge between the trio. Difficult questions need to be asked and answered.
Writer Suzanne Loftus has approached a difficult and rarely talked about issue with sensitivity and a light touch, taking into consideration many of actor Abigail Brydon’s personal experiences to add authenticity to the piece. It shines a beacon on the issue of who should ‘police’ a disabled person’s love life? What right do those who are not disabled to ‘protect’ or indeed make decisions on their behalf? It highlights the frustrations of having to deal with constant, patronising behaviour and assumptions. It also tackles the issue of non-disabled/disabled relationships and society’s discomfort with the idea of them. All of this it does in a non-aggressive, non-confrontational way.
It presents carer Tracy as the one with lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence and gripped with a raft of fears, unlike her charge, the gutsy Beth. It does, to its credit, also highlight the importance of routine to Beth and love and relationships from her (often simplistic, black and white) point of view.
Abigail Brydon is magnetic in the central role of Beth; she has a verve and charm that wins you over from the first scene and Loftus’ words delivered by a Down’s Syndrome actor and written in collaboration with Brydon, have added weight. Calum Barbour as Mark, the object of everyone’s affection, gives a nicely nuanced performance, sensitively but strongly questioning Tracy’s idealistic views on Disabled people and relationships. Barbour also sings and plays guitar beautifully throughout the play. Rachel Still’s Tracy is probably the least rounded character, well-meaning, sweet, but lacking any depth or intellectual curiosity. Still does her best with an under-written role.
Theatre should be a mirror of society. The world is a large and diverse place and it’s refreshing to see different types of representation on a mainstream stage. Theatre needs much more of this in order to truly appeal to the largest possible demographic, and to question and expand our artistic horizons.
Well-worth seeing – both a charming and challenging piece of theatre.
(This production features fully integrated BSL)