Mark and I met in the dark depths of the third lockdown, over Zoom, on a playwriting course. At the time the idea of pursuing a career in theatre directing was very new (a slightly perverse notion, it must be said, given that every theatre in the country was closed at the time, but then absence had made the heart grow fonder). I was keen to develop new work and noticed, from the short extracts shared in our classes, that Mark was possessed of a natural gift for writing character and speech. I asked if he had anything I could read and he sent over a monologue delivered from the perspective of a devoted husband called Dennis, who solicitously cares for his wife, Gina, who’s upstairs in a coma after suffering from a stroke a few months previously. Mark’s powers of observation and the natural easy rhythms of his written speech were clear from the start, and I decided to stage a filmed version of the play.
What’s interesting, looking back now, is how different the play was without the presence of Gina on stage. It was still a touching story, but it was also in its way quite unsettling. Gina was a silent figure, upstairs, offstage, without a voice. ‘Does she have a life of her own in her head?’ Dennis asks at one point, and we, the audience, don’t know the answer. All we do know is that he looks after her, lovingly for sure, but perhaps slightly too lovingly. There’s a sense in which Dennis almost enjoys the present arrangement, and that finally, when all’s said and done, he now has her where he wants her. She is his, to have and to hold. ‘You like the routine, Dad. You like to be in control,’ his daughter Maddie says to him towards the end of the play. ‘That’s right, isn’t it Gina love?’ he says later into the baby monitor he uses to listen to her from downstairs, ‘You’ve always had me to look after you.’
What’s interesting, looking back now, is how different the play was without the presence of Gina on stage. It was still a touching story, but it was also in its way quite unsettling. Gina was a silent figure, upstairs, offstage, without a voice. ‘Does she have a life of her own in her head?’ Dennis asks at one point, and we, the audience, don’t know the answer. All we do know is that he looks after her, lovingly for sure, but perhaps slightly too lovingly. There’s a sense in which Dennis almost enjoys the present arrangement, and that finally, when all’s said and done, he now has her where he wants her. She is his, to have and to hold. ‘You like the routine, Dad. You like to be in control,’ his daughter Maddie says to him towards the end of the play. ‘That’s right, isn’t it Gina love?’ he says later into the baby monitor he uses to listen to her from downstairs, ‘You’ve always had me to look after you.’