This beautifully staged and physicalised piece provides everything that one could wish for in terms of metaphor and images related to sand and sea. As Jane’s mind crumbles due to the tragic progress of early onset Alzheimer’s, so too does the sand in her pockets and beneath her feet. A real strength of 1 Beach Road is the creation of such pictures, showing not telling the audience to great effect. Victoria and Jane are two middle-aged women who meet in a beach cafe and form a gentle relationship which eventually sees them moving in together and running a cliff-side B&B.
At first their sea views are obscured by houses, but gradually this becomes less of a problem as the cliffs erode and remove the obstacle. Suddenly the sea is only too visible and tension mounts as we the audience begin to see more clearly too; for Jane things are not going to get better. She too teeters on a precipice with no real hope of rescue. The couple struggle on amidst the painful erosion, the passage of time and Jane’s loss of coherent thought strikingly illustrated through the use of repetitive sequences. Those which struck me most were a repeated hospital appointment where the questions remained the same but Jane’s answers became more and more vague, and a montage of the couple’s restless sleeping patterns cleverly illustrating the disruption of a previous peace.
Levels were used to great effect for the cliff top and to highlight the repetition, and both Cassie Friend and Catherine Dyson are accomplished physical performers whose every movement brought their characters more clearly to life. Jane performed some aerial work clothed in a swimming costume towards the end, illustrating her demise, which was breathtaking to watch but a little brief. The amicable relationship between the characters was all the more painful for seeing it destroyed, but points maybe at a slightly ‘safe’ portrayal; I wasn’t sure that I always believed that this was a passionate couple who were in love. However, these were characters who both appeared to be ‘held back’ by something, perhaps their middle-class natures, and this portrayal did link well to the final poignant section with Victoria attempting to ‘keep her head up’ and cope alone until the inevitable and dramatic denouement. A skilled and lyrical piece, this production approaches the issue of Alzheimer’s with honesty, guts and wonderful creativity.