PAUL Zindel’s semi autobiographical drama shows us a claustrophobic household in 60s America.
Beatrice (Sarag Russell’s Chesil début), the hopelessly inconsistent, domineeringly neurotic and anything but nurturing mother; Tillie (Claire Jakeman), shy but showing promise as a scientist at school and up for a prize for the project from which the play takes its title; Ruth (Charlotte Gatherer), who seems to have more influence but is as mentally fragile as her mother; Nanny the elderly lodger (Sulvia Jobling’s wordless début for Chesil); and Peter, Tillie’s pet, a dark brown rabbit, played by Poochy, who certainly wins the audience’s heart.
Director Tim Robbins gives a palpable sense of the world outside – where the school can represent a threat to Beatrice – as Russell demonstrates in several excruciating phone calls – but some hope to Tillie, whose project presentation is a highlight of Jakeman’s performance, wittily contrasted by rival Jessica Rugman, in her Chesil début.
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