Kissed By A Flame
The Pleasance Theatre • 2nd - 11th February
In 1850, Alfred Tennyson famously wrote “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”, in an elegy about the death of his closest friend Arthur Henry Hallum, but how many people who have lost a loved one have found themselves forever wishing fate would have granted them more time to spend together, or struggled to reconcile a profound sense of guilt about those precious last months during which certain moments could have been better spent.
In Simon Perrott’s two-hander Kissed By A Flame, it’s been eleven years since Jamie (Ian Leer) lost his partner Teddy (Andrew Lancel), the devastating emotional fallout of which has now lasted the same duration as the eleven year’s they actually got to spend in a relationship together. It’s an anniversary upon which Jamie knows he must finally confront his grief and work through a number of unresolved episodes from his final few years with Teddy. Like Jacob Marley to Dicken’s Scrooge, Teddy has returned to Jamie’s side to help him consolidate memories from their past that have remained locked away in the pages of a diary that details their last 18 months together, in the hope that Jaimie might finally be able to move on with his life.
The basic premise may sound familiar, it having much in common with Tom Ratcliffe’s recent play ‘Wreckage’, seen at the Turbine Theatre last month, but despite the physical presence of a deceased partner in both, the tone of the two plays is very different. Whereas ‘Wreckage’ offered ‘turbo-charged performances’ filled with anger and violence, Perrott’s writing and Ball’s direction bring a more reflective tone to proceedings, where love, regret and fear are the fuel from which Leer and Lancel’s outstanding performances are built upon, showing Teddy to be the more resilient and surprisingly pragmatic half of the relationship, whilst Jamie finds himself increasingly lost in his grief.
This authenticity that the two actors bring to their characters is made all the more impactful by the fact that the play reflects a very real experience lived by playwright Simon Perrott himself, it being a near autobiographical account of the loss of his own partner, Steve, in 2007. Whilst writing the play must have no doubt been something of a cathartic process, Perrott never allows his writing to tip into self indulgence, his experience instead being used to make acute observations about relationships, loss, grief and how we deal with it… or don’t deal with it, as the case may be. It is certainly dark subject matter which understandably doesn’t lend itself to much humour, and even though Jamie finds himself questioning wether his efforts in looking after his partner were enough, whilst becoming overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness at the situations inevitable outcome, both actors are able to imbue their performances with a warmth that draws from the audience an effortless sympathetic response, both for the couple and the situation they are struggling to come to terms with.
The set upon which their story unfolds is a simple, but impeccably dressed circular rotating stage designed by Jack Valentine which has the couples bed at its centre. With a backdrop devoid of colour, it being dressed in long white drapes, it is left to Rebecca Lyon’s subtle lighting design to successfully take the audience back to the past and return to the present with efficient, colour coordinated clarity. If there is any criticism of this production, it’s only that we never get to see the relationship through anything other than the lens of Teddy’s diagnosis, and whilst Jaime and Teddy’s love for each other is apparent throughout, the inclusion of a more joyful counterpoint might have offered some emotional relief whilst simultaneously adding even more weight to where the couple unexpectedly found themselves.
“There seems to be a lot of queer theatre on at the moment”, my lodger observed as I returned home from Kissed By A Flames press night… and he’s not wrong. Thankfully, and impressively, it’s not just an increase in volume either, as there’s actually been a lot of quality queer theatre already this year, it being as fantastic to see the West End return of Rob Madge’s hilariously touching ’My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do About It) as it was to experience last nights incredibly moving “Kissed By A Flame”. I can only hope that the diversity in the stories being told, and the voices telling them continues to grow, and that they get the support they deserve from anyone interested in productions that reflect the very essence of what it means to be human.
★★★★
review: Simon J. Webb
photographs: Liam Fraser Richardson