Catharina Davison in Metro
The box installations of conceptual artist Christian Boltanski, a French jew preoccupied by the Holocaust, inspired the set of David Carter's play. The idea is beautifully simple: stacks of tarnished boxes create the metaphorical walls of a waiting room in which two HIV positive characters, Frank (Paul Mohan) and Sarah (Polly Frame), embark on a complex journey of friendship and self - discovery. Each cradles their box of treasured life possessions - Frank's contains his 'pills and fags', Sarah's holds an ultrasound photo and a knitted jumper for her unborn child.
The reception room becomes a shrine to the dead, but also to those society unjustly considers the 'living dead'; those who have Aids. The room is a box in itself, where lives are being enacted and where words, deconstructed into further 'box - like' units are charged with intensity and adroitness; 'Con.Se.Quen.Ces. Con!' says Frank. 'It's a con!'
Mohan is exceptional as the neurotic, tortured junkie, but Frame is sizzling with vigour and talent. Her Scottish accent is unfaltering, her presence unnerving yet strangely nurturing, and the chemistry between the two actors is a pleasure to behold.
In a world where a person dies of Aids every 13 seconds, Chrysalis Theatre and Theatre West's remarkable joint production is a much needed dose of reality.
Steve Wright in Venue Magazine
David Carter's tense, nervy piece throws together two HIV sufferers and sets them down in a nameless waiting room. Here they sit for hours on end, surrounded by stacks of boxes representing the memories and attachments that patients bring to this soulless holding zone: flickering light and projections add to the eerie asylum feel. The play's thrust is provided by the duo's contrasting backgrounds and both actors do an excellent job. Sarah (Polly Frame) is a brittle Glaswegian with a lot of unused love swilling around: her life, peripatetic from the start, has armed her with a robust faith in her own survival, while Frank (Paul Mohan) has been brutally torn from a secure family life by one night of excess, and the black hole at his heart is appalling to see. Language - as both defence and invitation to the warmth for which both are desperate - is crucial, and well - rendered. Frank's speech in particular is a Tourettes - style minefield of allusions, fragments of knowledge and idioms: the poor fella's crashing around inside his own mental cage. Sarah meanwhile, is brittle when stung by Frank yet, when allowed, she has hope, warmth and humour for them both. The build - up of dialogue is well managed: at the beginning the two can communicate only in snappy monosyllables, but the language grows slowly but inexorably as defences are eroded. It's by turns thought - provoking, chilling and heartwarming stuff, and the strand of black humour running throughout sits well in the desensitised surroundings.
Hermione Edwards in Epigram
"How many days are there in February?" are the first words uttered by Frank in Reception, David Carter's hour-long play, which is full of thought provoking questions ... Two thirty-somethings meet in the waiting room of a rehabilitation clinic, and over the course of the play they establish a fragile connection. Reception's intense dialogue is complimented by raw convincing acting from both characters. Sarah (Polly Frame) brilliantly conveys the deep loneliness that lurks beneath her confident exterior ... Paul Mohan plays Frank, whose several monologues are witty ... Sarah probes into Frank's life and while at first he seems terrified of any intimacy, it isn't long before they find themselves dependant on one another, revealing their deepest insecurities and the disease that has brought them together.
Reception is a joint production with Chrysalis Theatre - Carter's recently established company - which aims at highlighting issues such as drugs, alcohol and HIV ... this is a poignant and deeply affecting rendition of a snatched encounter between two people, whose paths cross at a time of great emotional need.
Stuart Riddle in Entwine Magazine
David Carter ... expertly provides a script that refuses to tie up neatly, but rather leaves the viewer hanging and credits them with enough intelligence to take its threads and weave them into their own cloth ... The reception in question is seemingly the reception of a respite hospice where Frank and Sarah not only meet each other for the first time, but also meet themselves. As the story develops, it becomes increasingly apparent that 'reception' may actually refer to just how differently two people can 'receive' and process the same bit of news. As we follow the development of their relationship, we see two very different voyages of discovery. I particularly enjoyed Frank's battle with pronouns; 'IT! IT again, always IT!' Carter's script beautifully illustrates a struggle to understand the world in which we live, whilst asking us the question; to what extent does 'misunderstanding' this constitute mental ill health? Another theme of the dialogue was around loss; of childhood, of parenthood, of 'health' and indeed of pre - HIV lives ... Sarah and Frank's discomfort and then unwillingness to leave the hospice ... becomes all the more poignant as she says to Frank 'I can't leave, I have to wait,' 'Until when?' 'Until I can't wait any more.' I couldn't help thinking that the respite hospice was in fact a well crafted analogy for the life of a person living with HIV bound by the stigma, the medicalisation and the inevitability attached to the virus.
Reception was beautifully acted and was blessed with a minimal, but powerful set. The back drop of the piece was an effective representation of the lives already touched by HIV/AIDS as the personal effectgs of previous patients created the reception's walls. With lighting and sound effects that clarified the emotion of each scene beautifully, 'Reception' was a joy to behold.
The Big Issue
David Carter's powerful new play 'Reception' breaks throught the labels and nonsense to look at a couple of real people facing the painfully real business of living with HIV ... the two characters clash in the reception of an HIV hospice; he resigned to waiting for death, she refusing to give up on life ... they become united in what they share despite the knowledge that in other circumstances they would never have met. This is a fascinating interplay of two powerful characters. It's obviously not a cheerful subject, but the warmth and humanity they share offers a surprising array of wry wit and dark humour.
Cracked
Rina Vergano in Venue Magazine
This two-hander opens in a stylised, wordless dream-sequence seen through a gauze screen: we see two lovers who toss and turn on a bed, caress each other, move together and apart. The veil drops and the story begins to unravel. We discover that Julian’s girlfriend Tanya died and he tried to kill himself, and in the process of discovering we are drawn into the agonised inner world of the two characters. Writer David Carter skilfully uses the coinage of language to create a visceral and intelligent piece of theatre which keeps the audience engaged from beginning to end. As the images become more poetic and surreal, Carter reveals the stark reality of a paranoid episode, with its attendant manic mental processes. Intentionally or unintentionally, the themes of the piece have an almost Shakespearean dimension. Like Hamlet, Julian ‘thinks too precisely on the point’, tangling himself in a web of thoughts which become increasingly claustrophobic: even the simple act of freeing a trapped fly from a room turns into an existential struggle, but one which is made tangible and accessible to the onlooker with a light touch of humour. As the two lovers look back over their lives and relationship, and their reasons for stepping out of life, they carry on reflecting beyond the point where the ‘star-crossed lovers’ Romeo and Juliet abruptly stopped. The mood is impressionistic rather than realistic – we don’t need to know if the two characters are dead or alive, and they could be either at various points.
Gunnary Cauthery and Noni Lewis play the two characters with disarming forthrightness, and revel in David Carter’s actorly text which leaps from page to stage so successfully under Pamili Benham’s finely judged direction. ‘Death and Life and In Between’ is presented as a double-bill with Peter Barnes’ profound but hilarious conceit on the nature of non-conformism, ‘Nobody Here But Us Chickens’. Both these pieces are a reminder that whilst many main producing theatres continue to eschew content in favour of style, both are alive and well on the fringe. Stepping Out Theatre Company once again proves that small can be beautiful and that, given the right treatment, personal issues can powerfully hit a universal mark.
Chris Mitchell in Metro
The first of an unhinged pair of one ˆ act plays on the theme of mental
health, David Carter‚s Death and Life and In Between‚ explores the minds of multiple characters coping with life, love and loss. Yet this is not a trite, two ˆ dimensional essay on schizophrenia. The audience is constantly left chasing who is who as Ben Tinniswood (initially a patient in a secure hospital) and Noni Lewis (his visiting girlfriend) swap identities and perspectives. Stories of a suicide, a funeral not attended and an abortion swirl around the stage in pirouettes of painful recall before a final, peaceful reversal of the opening, it‚s story unresolved, but powerful nonetheless.