"On a cold night in North-West London, school teacher Kyra's former lover arrives unexpectedly at her flat. Tom is the wealthy restaurateur who visits her in her cold Kensal Rise flat. He is still grieving Alice’s death (his wife), seeking Kira’s consolation from guilt and grief over the death of his wife a year ago. The pair reminisce about their past and try to rekindle their relationship as they bond over shared memories, yet their moral oppositions to each other's lives lead to tensions. The two become locked in a clash of conflicting ideologies and desires as they retell the story of their love affair. Complex emotions, that had been left untouched for three years, re-emerge as resentment is tangled up with lust and antagonisms escalate over the course of the night.” (ADC plot summary)
The 90s play starts with a protagonist radiating the same will to live as Avril Lavigne. She’s a Londoner, just past thirty, and Brick Lane jewellery is all over her hands. Endless references to Freud poured laughter into the audience straight away. From the Yellow Pages to fashion, the time travel that this play provides is priceless. However, it doesn’t dissolve into a distant past but rather brings us right in the present, revived by Martha Alexander (Kira), Robert Petrie (Tom) and Alex Thompson (Edward).
The very talented Blossom Durr and Lucy Mill orchestrated the digital reality of Skylight with impeccable music and dazzling images. They drew me into this multisensorial universe, where Kira is chopping real garlic in the Corpus Playroom and where living in outer Siberia is a “style choice”. The front row of the audience was a pure reflection of everyone’s emotions, whereas, sitting in the second row, I kept behaving like a therapist, taking notes. Until I started laughing. I shouldn’t laugh at cheating, but I couldn’t help it. Kira is like a living storm, leaving us with goosebumps when describing the waitress episode and the 2:30am scene. Themes of belonging and grief are only some of the exceptional enactments of the full emotional spectrum within this play.
A week later, I sit with Blossom and Lucy, having digested it all. They both admit how daunting the prospect of directing Skylight was, both glad to co-direct and luckily in synch. It was a quick turnaround after an intense summer rehearsing. Lucy was particularly intrigued to transform the stage of the Corpus Playroom into a North London flat. Blossom remarks how symbolic the lighting palette was, with the initial lighting being warm and pink, building a comfortable atmosphere, followed by warmer lighting (morning glow) when Edward arrives in the afternoon. Colder lighting emerges in the evening with Tom, a sign of their tense, rocky relationship.
Aesthetic efforts in directing seem to be exclusive to the body and its shadows. There’s so much anger in the protagonist, my throat was sore just hearing Kira scream. I still remember her self-soothing in an armchair, between the alcohol that she was brought. She looked so fragile, like a human leaf. The characters force us to witness their emotions, making us feel like intruders in an intimate, private bubble of wreckage and rupture. I don’t think British people ever had these many feelings in one sitting. A beginning of laughter ending with waves of tears.
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