When you sign up to become someone's life partner you are there to be both friend and lover, confidante and helpmate, but nobody every signs up expecting to become a carer. Especially if the person being cared for no longer seems to be 'there'.
Rob is an architect, used to living his life in the comfort of order and design. His wife Cathy has an easier going attitude, complementing her husband's more regimented approach. When Rob begins to exhibit signs of forgetfulness, and worse, how long will it be before Cathy can admit there's a real problem to be faced up to?
Daughter Nicola, realistic and practical, forces the issue as she sees the progress of the illness and the terrible impact it has, not just on Rob, but on Cathy too. Each must confront this change in their lives in their own way, and do whatever they can to accept the disintegration of the Rob they all knew.
Barrie Hunter is an increasingly haunted looking Rob, moving from a man in control to one assailed by forces he can't understand. Fiona MacNeil's Nicola, a little too softly spoken at times, is a calming voice of reason, forcing her mother to accept her own limitations.
But it's Wendy Seager's superb performance as Cathy which dominates throughout. Caught between the frustration of her husband and the pragmatism of her daughter, she brings a genuine sense of pain to the role, and is challenged, determined and defeated by turns.
Switching between dialogue and monologue, and with a surprising number of laughs along the way, the play raises questions about what we think of as humanity, of what makes you 'you', and the recognition that an illness like dementia does harm to more than just the person suffering its effects. It challenges us to place ourselves in the same situation, and wonder how long we would go on kidding ourselves that we can deal with the situation unaided.
Thought provoking entertainment.
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