‘I was in the house…’ Review: A Unique And Powerful Exploration Of Memory, Time, And Gender

The cast in rehearsals, photo by Charlotte Conybeare

‘I was in the house and I was waiting for the rain to come’ is a fascinating exploration of memory and lost time. It handles a difficult text impressively, with only a few moments lacking certainty.

It focuses on the story of five women who have been waiting for the return of the family’s only son, waiting for and imagining his return ever since. Their respective memories of events clash and compete during the play. When the son finally returns and collapses instantly they each try to come to terms with the gap between their expectations of the son’s return and its reality. It confronts them with what all the years waiting have meant. For the whole play he is ‘sleeping’ in his childhood room, leaving each of the women in a continued and heightened state of limbo.

The performances are excellent throughout. Early on Katya Stylianou dominates much of the proceedings as ‘The Mother’, cutting into the others’ memories and shutting down any reproachful sentiments towards the absent boy. She delivers a powerful series of monologues revealing her shock at his feeble state and yet doubles down on what she sees as her, and all of her family’s, duty, stating “People do this. Yes. We must wait for him.” Maia von Malaisé is impressive, handling the key opening monologue with delicacy and poise, later sharing a playful scene with Mia Glencrose as she educates and disillusions her younger sibling about men. It is a rare moment of humour and back-and-forth dialogue that shines in the production. Louisa Grinyer’s performance is deeply impactful - as the youngest daughter she is frequently sidelined by the others. Yet her first speech ignites the play, destabilising the other women’s versions of events.She refuses to excuse her father’s violence, and accuses the others of not having stood up to him. Her anger is met forcefully by Lucy Miller as the grandmother. Miller brings a steely-eyed certainty to her response and carries that resolve through her performance, hinting at the kind of terrible strength required to endure the life she has lived. All the actors do remarkably well with the demanding and complicated material.

This production is strongest where it uses movement to break up and support the text. Co-directors Olivia Krauze and Aubin Ramon’s use of physicality on stage helps bring out the emotion of the text, crafting a number of pieces of movement between the cast that stand out as highlights. As Grinyer’s ‘Youngest One’ delivers her accusatory speech, for example, she is gradually restrained physically by her older sisters. These physical moments do a lot to help the complex text land emotionally with the audience.

The set (designed by Rory Clarke) is similarly excellent. The stage contains a central white island, with a sofa and a kitchen counter and sink giving enough of an impression of a family home, yet maintaining a minimal look. This allows the characters to move through different memories and through time while keeping the play grounded. The use of part of the front row likewise adds to this, the set spilling off of the stage. Phoebe Morse’s lighting design is equally clever. Two suspended lamps flicker sharply at many points throughout the play and lighting is used on a number of occasions to catapult us out of the oppressive setting of the house. For example, ‘The Middle One’s’ hope of going with her brother to the local ball is rendered in full disco-lighting, with each of the characters becoming backing dancers to her fantasy. There is careful use of sound as well, with background noises (cicadas, flickering lights) used and a good selection of music, including Ryuichi Sakamoto’s mournful piece ‘andata’ towards the end. All of this design serves to add needed tension and variance to a heavy script filled with complex, novel-like monologues, creating some of the production's most impactful moments.

All of this leads to an interesting exploration of complex themes. The issue of male-dominated power structures is dealt with subtly, as The Middle One’s disillusionment from her romantic notions of men mirrors a growing realisation that their long waiting and worrying has not been reciprocated by the son. As the suspicion grows that the son only cared about his relationship with his father, the women in his life being essentially superfluous, her cry that “it’s a kind of crime to have nothing to do with those who love you” is gut-wrenching. There are also fascinating ideas around memory, with the older women of the family trying to maintain hold of a sort of official narrative. In moments the whole cast speaks lines together, little phrases used to gloss over memories and forget painful moments. One of the most unsettling is their repetition of “One of those terrible rages that used to shake the walls” in reference to the violent, abusive father. Though ‘The Younger One’ tries to disrupt this narrative, it proves too potent, and by the end of the play there is a sense that she is ostracised for her nonconformity.

The main difficulty with this play comes from the text itself. Lagarce’s script gets at much that is interesting, but in seeking to place the characters’ highly complex thoughts and feelings on stage, he relies on extensive and occasionally hard to follow monologues. Undoubtedly the translation of this script from French to English (by co-directors Olivia Krauze and Aubin Ramon) is a remarkable feat, and a British theatre first. Yet there is an inherent difficulty in the task and at times the play is quite demanding of its audience and can struggle for emotional clarity amid the constant flow of speech. Occasionally these monologues can become repetitive and, despite the cast's best efforts, it can be difficult to give each one its own significance.

That said, this is no real fault of the cast and crew, whose efforts with this play are hugely impressive. As it is, this production is a full realisation of the script's potential, and a fascinating and unique production that is well worth experiencing.

I was in the house and I was waiting for the rain to come is on at the Corpus Playroom until Saturday the 4th of November.