Casserole by James Alexandrou, Kate Kelly-Flood & Dominic Morgan. The Arcola, Studio 2, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 to 30 March 2024. 3✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

Casserole by James Alexandrou, Kate Kelly-Flood & Dominic Morgan. The Arcola, Studio 2, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 to 30 March 2024.

3✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“Impressive performances in a play about marital troubles and bereavement”

This Actors East Theatre production is the first to make it to the Arcola and is impressively performed by James Alexandrou and Kate Kelly-Flood as Kate and Dom, a couple living together in some squalor – their relationship is in trouble – coping in different and conflicting ways with bereavement. Alexandrou, who directs, created the piece with Kelly-Flood and Morgan in a series of workshops – if I could read the illegible programme I could tell you more but the designer has chosen to print it in orange on dark red – which is how the company like to work. The result is the performances are well judged but the play itself lacks dramatic structure, we never, for instance, discover very much about why they are not getting on, why Dom is a househusband, why she is letting him get away with never clearing up and just what it is about their relationship with her mother who has recently died. The trouble seems there to be that Dom and his mother in law got on well, he was there when she died, while Kate was not. She is a singer and we find Dom repairing his bike in the living room where the dining table is piled high with left overs and empty drink cans while the kitchen is full of dirty dishes and the bedroom is piled with discarded clothes. The set stretches right across the length of Studio 2. Kate appears, having quite an Awards ceremony she was attending early, and they start to fight. She is furious with his behaviour, but also resentful of how he got on with her mother, and upset at not having been there when she died. The casserole is the last dish mother prepared for them which is apparently in the deep freeze and will play a part in what follows. Alexandrou creates a slob with great skill and Kelly-Flood – the programme designer is somewhat cavalier with that hyphen – is equally good at creating someone who cares for him, but cares for her career possibly more and has that difficult background of a mother who was – for her at least – a problem. It is impressively staged – set designers Paulina Camacho and Paul Weedle have worked wonders in creating the sort of mess these people would make of wherever they lived – and the performances are very good but one is relieved when it is all over. One has no desire to stay with them or find out any more about them so that all the angst that must have gone into the workshop travails really is wasted. There is nothing wrong about watching a play about a relationship in free fall but one has to care about the people not feel trapped – maybe authors should not direct their own work, maybe it was partly due to how the piece was created, but was I glad to escape at the end.

Cast

Kate Kelly-Flood – Kate.

James Alexandou – Dom.

Creatives

Director – James Alexandrou.

Co- Set Designers – Pauline Camacho & Paul Weedie.

Costume Designer – Katie Mcgoldrick.

Lighting Designer – Kit Mackenzie.

Graphic Designer – Emma Beinish.