What if a random, horrible, unexpected, impossible event hit you so hard and knocked you down for good? What if a loved brother, proud son, is stolen to never be returned? Could this tragedy ever heal? Could the wound ever be stitched? Could the scar ever become more bearable?
Random at the Tristan Bates Theatre is a ‘one-woman show’.
Francesca Amewudah-Rivershas has a hard task. Well, she has many ambitious tasks. She makes you feel the normality of a day, a random normal day. She makes you sense the oddness of that random normal day when something is just not right. She makes you feel the tragedy of a random act of violence that will change her life - and the life of the whole family - forever.
It is ambitious though. A father, a mother, a sister, all having their own reactions, are hard to play at once. Francesca does a good job, but it is a hard task to express that absolute feel of desperation, in three completely different ways by the three different people left behind.
The atmosphere of a full theatre in an almost empty stage is created by a superb work of lights. Simple yet perfect. Praise to the creative team helping Francesca create and define the space on stage, so you feel yourself walking in their house, even if you are sitting on a chair of a theatre.
Random might lack those loud silent pauses that give the right gravity and sometimes it feels rushed, but it is an honest exploration of grief and knife-crime. Events when time really stops and sometimes never starts again for who lives that eternal moment of tragedy.
It runs until 14 December.
Review: Giuseppe Barone