As Francesca Martinez’s pressing, humorous and intensely shifting play begins, two girls – one with cerebral palsy (“I desire ‘wobbly’”), the opposite able-bodied – arrive for a remedy session. We would assume the disabled girl is the affected person however within the first of many reversals of expectation, it’s not so. Jess (Martinez) is the compassionate therapist … but she will’t comply with her personal recommendation and expose her fury, want and vulnerability.
Private, political, even polemical, All of Us was programmed earlier than lockdown, however the pandemic has solely sharpened the cruelties of austerity. Care provision shrinks, assist is deserted. There’s a lot to be indignant about, however Jess retains a lid on emotion. Each the bodily and emotional labour of Martinez’s efficiency are placing. “Set free the wobbly rage!” her neighbour urges, nevertheless it doesn’t readily emerge. She maintains that every little thing is okay, even when left half-dressed whereas the lights exit.
Georgia Lowe’s raspberry-carpeted stage features a central revolve and this play makes us think about individuals from each angle. Below Ian Rickson’s exact but delicate route, they reveal their dimensions: significantly Bryan Dick’s recalcitrant, lacerating affected person, and an incandescent Francesca Mills, whose character might use a wheelchair however gleefully refuses pieties, preferring a spliff and a Tinder hookup (“I'm a woozy floozy”).
Though the play is constructed on uncomfortable, prolonged conversations, its characters hate having to debate incapacity or want. That’s not who they're. However whether or not in formal or on a regular basis discuss, they’re dragged again to no matter stands of their approach or are required to elucidate themselves. Martinez captures every evasion, frustration or humorous deflection, however because the cuts chunk but more durable and the motion broadens to incorporate public conferences with a sharkish native MP, evasion isn’t an choice.
With a lot of her life wobbling, Jess admits she is drawn to extreme management. Among the play’s jokes and arguments land too squarely on the nostril, nevertheless it calls for we construct a society the place we will actually see and worth each other. Its insistence on radical empathy shines shiny. “I’m not damaged,” Jess claims. “I’m a singular spark of life. All of us are.”
On the Dorfman, Nationwide Theatre, till 24 September
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