Playwrights are naturally drawn to the brain and heart. Rarely do plays more fully convey what it’s like to live in someone else’s body. Writer-performer Eve Steele achieves just that with all seven characters in this affecting, amusing drama with political bite.
It helps that the setting is an exercise class, but beyond aching joints and new injuries, Steele examines the physical effects of a range of longstanding mental health conditions and traumas that each participant brings into this drab community hall. Effortfully perky instructor Alice (Elizabeth Twells) leads the group and before any proper dialogue, characterisations begin through movement: Eva Scott’s uneasy Colette heads straight for the far wall, Dominic Coffey’s ticcing Shaq hunches inside his hoodie and Aaron McCusker’s forthright Rab swaggers into the space. Rebecca (Raffie Julien) wearily assists her dispirited nana, Marie (Eithne Browne), and Alice unleashes an upbeat playlist of high energy tunes.
As Alice struts through a rooster-ish routine, this motley group jiggle to Maroon 5 and resolutely prove they do not have moves like Jagger. Steele plays late arrival Siobhan who brings a whirlwind of focused energy not to the exercises but to getting her attendance sheet signed, as the class is part of her recovery programme for heroin addiction.
Steele’s play is broken into weekly chapters documenting growing tensions and unions, the short scenes resembling bursts of exercise. But the conventional structure and storyline are disrupted by heightened sequences that step out of the present moment. The most unexpected is when Colette takes centre stage during a routine to Rihanna’s Jump, the others becoming her backing dancers, and then touches Alice’s body with awe before taking her in a chokehold.
Memories are also individually shared in direct address to the audience and this device is incorporated within the plot as the class’s funding is jeopardised and the group give a presentation on what it means to them. They list the personal challenges it has helped them overcome and the sequence could just as easily speak for the many community arts programmes now threatened by local council cuts.
Sarah Frankcom’s superbly acted production captures that peculiar mixture of anonymity and intimacy recognisable from any fitness class. In scene after scene you see connections made: in one, Rebecca and Shaq converse through sign language while Marie and Alice slowly rehearse a routine in the background.
Occasionally the script overstates and overexplains, both in personal and political terms, and the final minutes require a slight heightening. But Steele and the rest of the cast exude vulnerability, the dialogue has plenty of bounce and this is a fulfilling evening, not least for Jennifer Jackson’s stunning movement direction.
• At Home, Manchester, until 16 March
