After a successful run of his debut play, To Have and to Hold at The Hope Theatre in London, writer Mark Bastin is back with his second play, The Dawn of Reckoning, performed at The White Bear Theatre in Kennington. With award winning director Matthew Parker at the helm, and starring Bryonie Pritchard and Jilly Bond as Helena and Ruth, the cast and creatives responsible for bringing Bastin’s play to life are surely promising. Despite this promising cast and creative team, I can’t help but wonder why the production feels flat throughout, making it difficult to grasp the heart of the play.
The story unfolds in a single set: a hotel bar, where we first meet Helena, helping herself to a nightcap. It’s a misty January evening, the lights are flickering, and she’s all alone… until she isn’t. Ruth, Helena’s former best friend, appears, revealing a friendship that lost its warmth twenty five years earlier. Helena married Antony, and nineteen years later, her son is dead, and her husband, rebranding as Tony, has left her for her best friend, Ruth. Fast forward another twenty five years: Tony has died, and the two former friends are alone at a hotel bar. What could possibly go wrong?
Helena is a stoic Northerner, and Ruth appears to be her complete opposite. Helena works in medical research, and Ruth as a children’s illustrator. Though they have shared memories of their adolescence, their husband, and their grief, the differences between these two women are immediately apparent, and it feels implausible that they ever shared a friendship. Although Pritchard and Bond are talented actresses in their own right, their dynamic as Helena and Ruth, however Bastin intended it, feels unconvincing. When the extent of their shared past is finally revealed, their initial encounter feels limp. There is little urgency in their emotions: no real shock, anger, or grief. The gravity of their past feels inconsequential, displayed only through restrained body language and the occasional terse exchange. It’s only right at the end of the play that any emotion is truly put on display, and by then it feels lukewarm at best.
Perhaps there are one too many narrative threads here. Much of the dialogue jumps abruptly between Helena and Ruth fondly reminiscing about their university days where they first met during Freshers’ Week, and snapping at each other across the hotel bar with bitter sentiments, making the flow feel rather disjointed. The jumps are so sudden that it’s difficult to fully gauge the dynamic between the two women, and to comprehend the feeling between the former friends. Even when the full extent of their friendship and history is revealed right at the end, you’re still a little lost for answers. The various threads of narrative make it difficult to understand what the heart of this play truly is.
There is a moment when Helena and Ruth stand either side of the bar and seem to undergo a Freaky Friday style body shift. Alongside the flickering lights, this particular moment appears to hint at a supernatural, mystical element to the story, something that piqued my curiosity. However, this doesn’t develop in any way that is clear to me, making the scene feel a little randomly placed. Whether this is due to a lack of understanding on my side, or an underdeveloped narrative, remains open to interpretation…
Though Pritchard and Bond help to bring Bastin’s writing to life with occasional humorous remarks, these don’t always land well, and the overall delivery of this play feels a little mediocre. Had the writing been stronger, the audience might have felt more emotionally invested in Helena and Ruth’s story, allowing the revelations about their past to land with greater gravitas.
The end of the play, with all of the truth laid bare, does nothing to quell my confusion. Is it all just a dream? Is one of the two women dead? If so, which one? And why is it so damn misty outside? Unfortunately, despite the talented two person cast and the promising creative team behind it, The Dawn of Reckoning ultimately did nothing to capture my imagination or inspiration.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
