Second Person Narrative at New Era Theatre

It was a busy weekend for me: we saw Teesside folk duo Megson play at our local arts centre on Friday evening; on Saturday I baked a Dorset apple cake to take down to Hampshire for my father-in-law in advance of his 70th birthday, and in the evening, while my hubby got on with PhD stuff, I went to New Era Theatre, housed in a former chapel in our church carpark, for the first time. It’s a cozy space with only about 50 seats, and I sat on the front row.

The production was called Second Person Narrative, written by Jemma Kennedy and directed by Andy Kempe. Four actresses of different ages play the main character, known only as “You,” at various stages of her life. She’s an Everywoman, completely ordinary but also unique. Short scenes jump ahead three to six years at a time to highlight the big and small events that shape her life. At age 11, she tells the photographer on school picture day that she wants to be an explorer and save animals. At 23, she’s trying to spin her minimal experience into an enticing CV. At 36, she’s disillusioned by her first trip to the rainforest.

The set was a blue rectangular space with an Astroturf floor, hanging clouds covered in timepieces, and a gallery wall at the back where artifacts from You’s life accumulated scene by scene: her stuffed rabbit, a bouquet of flowers, a backpack, a cocktail shaker, and so on. The items are clever reminders of touchpoints from her story, but the wall is depressing: you look at it and wonder, Is that really all that a life adds up to? Occasional music emphasized the theme of time passing, with snippets of “As Time Goes By” and “Time after Time,” and the ending of each scene was signaled by the sound of a camera click.

Supporting characters seemed to serve as commentators on the protagonist’s choices. Her friends, mostly female, were dressed in white, while older males were in gray and played officious roles: her first work supervisor, a persnickety boyfriend who barely noticed when she left him during a trip to Italy, and a trio of men trying to turn her into a TV role model in her twenties or sell her a retirement flat in her seventies. By contrast, You wore red and black. Actresses played multiple roles: You’s mother and Granny from the early years were You in the third and fourth stages of life. This wasn’t just for convenience’s sake; it provides continuity and shows the character coming to resemble the generations of women before her.

The two most poignant scenes for me were when You is shopping with her mother and the salesgirl assumes the older woman will be in the market for things like a full-length caftan, and when sixtysomething You, having published a poetry collection, has to field inane questions from readers who don’t differentiate between a writer’s biography and art. Other scenes, though, such as You awkwardly flirting in a bar, didn’t add much to the whole.

I did expect the play to make more of the second person perspective. It’s something I find fascinating in books – though it’s often difficult to sustain for any longer than a short story or one chapter. The main character is never addressed by name; others refer to “she” or “her.” On a few occasions other actors come to the edge of the stage and carry on a one-sided dialogue, turning the audience into “You” and letting us fill in for ourselves what she’s saying in reply. What was confusing to me about that was that, as the years passed, the audience wasn’t only taking on the role of You, but her daughter and granddaughter too.

Only once is actual second person narration employed. This is during a nice meta moment when You, now 56, is hosting a book club meeting for friends; the text they’re discussing is Second Person Narration. After an argument with her daughter, she says aloud, “You look at your friends. You feel embarrassed. You pick your black top off the floor and wonder if you can actually still get into it.” One of the friends on stage asks, “Why is she talking like that?”

Overall, I found the production a bit odd and not entirely coherent, but it did succeed in making me think about the expectations placed on a woman’s life – by her family and friends, by society at large, and also by herself. The ending then, I think, specifically invites us to question how things would have gone differently had You been born male.

My rating:

 

What do you make of second person narration? Do you think you would have enjoyed this play?