Reviews

And I and Silence

The final play in the Finborough’s trilogy of works by women
writers, Naomi Wallace’s And I and Silence is the story of
best friends, Jamie and Dee, young women struggling against deprivation and
despair in 1950s America. The action shifts back and forth between then, the
point at which Jamie and Dee first become friends while serving time for
murder, and now, nine years after that initial meeting, where we observe the
women’s lives on the outside.

The two time frames are beautifully integrated, both
textually and in terms of director Caitlin McLeod’s elegant staging. The two
pairs of actors, playing present and past Dee and Jamie (Sally Oliver and Cat
Simmons, and Lauren Crace and Cherrelle Skeete respectively), tag-team on and
offstage, sharing more of each others’ space as the play go on. Cecelia Carey’s
ingenious design, along with Elliot Griggs’s flawless lighting, sees the Finborough’s intimate playing
space transformed from squalid hovel to bare prison cell and back again with
just a couple of prop changes. In a very effective piece of staging, Carey has
Young Dee and Young Jamie always in sight, even while the focus of the action
is their older selves – we may change and grow as time passes, but we can never
fully leave behind the people we once were.

Wallace is dealing with bleak subjects here – racism, sexual
abuse and the horrors of incarceration – but And I and
Silence
is tremendously subtle in its exploration of these ugly
truths. Wallace’s dialogue has a quickfire poetry about it that keeps the
play’s tone light-hearted and all four actors do a remarkable job keeping their
performances playful while evoking the despair that bubbles just beneath the
surface. An extraordinary achievement from all involved.