After Life
Tower Theatre until 08 March
Star rating: 3
You have to hand it to the Tower Theatre Company. The range of what they produce is impressive – probably the most varied, diverse and eclectic programming of any theatre in London. After Life by Hirokazu Kore-edo, adapted by Jack Thorne and directed by Alexander Kampmann is firmly in the tradition of their doing something pretty different rather competently.
The premise is that we’re in what the Catholics used to call “limbo”: a place where the dead go immediately after death for sorting. But this is not about God, religion or judgement – other than each individual’s own about his/her future. Instead each person has to choose a single memory to be reconstructed and re-enacted by the resident “staff” and then it, and only it, will be carried into permanence by the person who owns it. The ambience is clearly Japanese with a huge transparent, red full moon (set design by Angelika Michitsch) with lots of autumn leaves and cherry blossom.
It’s poignantly autumnal and fairly thoughtful even though it’s theatrically well off-centre. Moreover. there are several fine performances amongst this cast of eleven. The five staff have an air of melancholy about them because, businesslike and kindly as they are, they have each failed to find an appropriate memory so they are stuck where they are. Then Romain Mereau’s character discovers he has a connection with one of the newly dead and it gives him the lift he needs – it’s sensitive, intelligent, imaginative acting. And Jess Shiner, whose character (a young death) is ebullient and inappropriate provides lots of enjoyable dramatic contrast. James Taverner is moving as Hirokazu, desperately missing his wife, and Katie Smith is strong as the stereotypical staff member who strides about bossily.
After Life is a wordy play and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but it has its moments. There’s humour there too because Jack Thorne has these people speaking as casually as if they were in an office and the incongruity of that is quite fun in places.
