Wreckage Review: ‘an interesting exploration of grief’
Wreckage is playing at the Turbine Theatre until 22 January.
In Wreckage the writer-actor Tom Ratcliffe demonstrates how grief can be a raw, messy, and confusing emotional experience.
For characters Sam and Noel, things are apparently going well. They’ve been together for some time, long enough for Noel to propose and for the two to be living in a nice house with a garden and a cat.
Very quickly, though, tragedy strikes as Noel attempts to do a good deed for his love and the two characters are separated in the most definite of ways. Sam is left alone to reflect on his relationship while the memory of Noel, very much alive in Sam’s mind, guides him along on a painful and difficult process.
The plot is fast-paced. The first half feels slightly confusing, almost as if reflecting Sam’s confusion about what to do next, how he should move on and how he should deal with his grief. It’s not 100% clear. The second half feels more considered and thanks to Noel’s mostly gentle guidance does Sam, and the audience by extension, begin to gain some clarity.
As Sam, Ratcliffe is brave in traversing some of the most complex of emotions. He has not given himself an easy task of switching between polar opposites, at times going from heart-wrenching anguish to blissful happiness at the switch of a lighting cue. He is at his most heart breaking when he finally says the two words he spends most of the play running from and conceding his part in his partner’s fate.
Michael Walters has an easier task as Noel and gives a strong performance as a physical manifestation of Sam’s consciousness. He is warm and caring throughout offering Sam encouraging and reassuring words. He gives a memorably raw performance in one scene which sees him writhing in torture as Sam, tormented in his own right, tears down the vines that symbolise the pair’s lingering connection.
The Turbine Theatre offers an intimate setting. A bare stage is covered in the image of cracked glass while a screen set against the back wall shows projections of settings and dates for when action is taking place. Even so, it isn’t always clear where and when we are at times making the play hard to follow.
Wreckage is an interesting exploration of grief and how humans process such a complicated emotion. Sweetly, it looks at how we become intertwined with our loved ones and how they form a fundamental part of our identity. While it sometimes misses the mark, whether you’ve experienced meaningful loss and heartbreak or not, there is plenty here to resonate with.
3/5
Wreckage is playing at the Turbine Theatre until 22 January. Get tickets here.