Byth Bythoedd Amen review – searing drama with the edge of standup comedy
Sherman theatre, Cardiff
Mared Jarman’s superb debut play, in which she stars, provides a portrait of reckless nightlife and prejudice towards disabled people
The title of Mared Jarman’s play translates as “For ever and Ever Amen”: a playfully pious invocation for a drama that is often darkly adult. It’s a Friday night in Cardiff and Lottie (also played by Jarman) is seeking her own form of salvation, be it through impromptu hotel Tinder hook-ups or trauma-bonding over lines of coke in nightclub toilets. As a portrait of grief and the prejudices experienced by disabled people, this is an assured and impassioned playwriting debut.
Jarman’s performance is equally fearless. Unapologetic depictions of female sexuality remain relatively rare in Welsh-language theatre, and for the play to also foreground the desires of a blind character feels innovative and overdue. Paul Davies as Lottie’s best friend Bennie – as well as a slew of additional roles – is superb. We hear much about Bennie before he eventually appears onstage, and Davies’ expressive, smiling face seems to confirm an entire loving lifetime within a single expression.
Designed by Livia Jones, the traverse street scene is redolent of a child’s play mat, contrasting with the gaudy neon pink that invites Lottie on to the sticky dancefloor of the Clam Shack. Garrin Clarke’s lighting is particularly arresting in its fluid shaping of space. Rhian Blythe’s taut direction sustains a production (for Theatr Cymru) that is unafraid of leaning into a heightened theatricality, even as it veers close to camp and despite the content often being somewhat grim.
The drama seeks to straddle two worlds: destructive youthful abandon and the desire for placid maturity, the provocative and the sincere, light and dark, life and death. Some of the necessary tonal shifts are more disorientating and irreconcilable than others. Frequently, the play is strongest when emulating a darkly confessional standup routine where self-deprecation is wielded as a deflective shield. Alongside the script’s flippant quips about the aftertaste of semen are vicious descriptions of assault and of brutal ableist slurs whose violence is left hanging in the air.
At Sherman theatre, Cardiff, until 31 January. Then touring until 13 February.
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