Miss Myrtle’s Garden review – immersion into a mindscape of sharp quips and memory slips

Bush theatre, LondonArtistic director Taio Lawson’s Bush debut shows the heartbreaking fallout of a 82-year-old mother whose acid tongue belies her faltering memoryIn Danny James King’s Miss Myrtle’s Garden, life and death coexist. Acid-tongued Myrtle spends her days in her overgrown yard with her husband, Melrose, grandson, Rudy, and Rudy’s “close friend” Jason. But around the patch of grass, memories seep into the present through ghosts and flickering flashes, in a jumble of certainty and doubt.That’s because, at 82, Myrtle has begun to lose her grip on reality. Taio Lawson’s inaugural production as the Bush theatre’s incoming artistic director is a full immersion into this disorienting, fragile mindscape. One moment, a scene unfolds as a naturalistic conversation; the next, the auditorium is plunged into pitch darkness, pierced by an eerie, rumbling soundscape. It’s a striking way for Lawson to make a creative entrance; but with so much happening onstage, the production tips into becoming overblown and chaotic. Continue reading...

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