For a play with a cast of just three women, Richard Cameron’s award-winning Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down is full of men. Adored fathers, lost childhood sweethearts and neglected sons are never lurking far offstage. And the biggest lurker of them all is Royce Boland, whose bullying, brutality and manipulation link the lives of three women, past and present.
In a small town where everyone knows your business, it’s no surprise that when teenager Al Janny, victimised for being “different” by his peers, falls from a cliff edge, the repercussions are still felt years later. Three stories are recounted, half reminisced, half felt and lived, meaning the actors switch between conversation with the audience and full-blown re-enactment. This mix jarred somewhat at the start, making the acting feel over-done, but it became the cleverest trick up the cast’s sleeve, making a three-person play feel much fuller and giving depth and movement to what could have been three monologues.
This is the inaugural production of Red Cart Theatre, the brain-child of two of the three actors involved. Its mission statement claims to “celebrate the different voices of women”, making it a strange choice, perhaps, to go for a play written by a man. But Richard Cameron can write women flawlessly. Little twists will certainly chime with the female half of the audience. Like Jodie (played by a wide-eyed Laura Allen) convincing herself that the boy who’s been taking her to the pub every Sunday won’t mind that she’s got a new boyfriend because they were just friends, anyway.
But most of all, it’s guilt that Cameron hits on the head. Ruby (who Kelly McAuley plays with convincing weariness) feels guilty. Guilty for falling pregnant at 18, for making a fuss about it, for not spending enough time with her son. Guilt and faith penetrate each story in equal measure; it appears that God is the other male lurker stage-left in this town. Lynette (played by Bernice Pike in the most gut-wrenching performance of the night) remembers the sanctity of marriage – in good times and bad – as her husband forces her face into his shepherd’s pie.
The men are never far away. At times, the women talk to empty chairs, the audience finding the other side of the conversation all too easy to fill in with cliché (“I am not starting something”). The bully, Royce, arrives in disembodied whistling or when his harsh swearing suddenly comes out of his wife’s mouth as she recounts her story.
It was Jane Moriarty’s challenge, as director, to squeeze an entire town into the well-regarded but tiny White Bear Theatre. Clever and consistent use of movement succeeds in doing just that, whilst the proximity inevitably makes audience into uncomfortable confidante, jury perhaps. Her only slip-up – for a town where no-one seems to leave or arrive – was perhaps to leave the actors with quite such mismatched accents.
As three stories loop together, some kind of resolution is found. But as the familiar cycle of mental illness, ostracisation and secrets starts again, one wonders whether anything really can change in this town.
Words: Rosie Hore
Pictures: Darren Bell
