Bright Half Life at Meraki Arts Bar: Review By Cynthia Ning
We are kicking off Pride Month by seeing the heartfelt and emotional play, Bright Half Life written by American playwright, Tanya Barfield at the Meraki Arts Bar on Oxford Street.
The theatre sits on the top level opposite the luxurious green room and is an intimate space where the audience enters through the stage to their seats. Carly (Producer) welcomed everyone to this special viewing of their production and brought up the energy by encouraging everyone to cheer on the actors to start their season on a high note.
What struck me first was the white door frame on top of black boxes, creating a separate platform for the actors to enter and exit from. The monochrome background with a mix of imagery, words, lamps on floating shelves and the Ferris Wheel backdrop placed us in space. As we were trying to make sense of it all, Vicky (Genevieve Craig) and Erica (Samantha Lambert) storm onto the stage with their whirlwind romance and declaration of love.
It's messy and complicated, as young love often is, and we can already see the stark differences in their personality and behaviours when it comes to dealing with sensitive topics. Samantha delivers with intensity and playfulness as Erica, being a little immature at times and always going with her gut instinct but softens as she melts into Genevieve’s Vicky. Her cool and calm demure matched her professional role as Vicky believed that by exceeding everyone’s expectations, it protected their love.
The choppy pace of scene changes were a little jarring at first as we only saw snippets of moments of their lives, from their first meeting to their first date and to their future selves, it felt like the universe was tilted on an axis so that we could see into what life would be like with each other until the very end. The style is very reminiscent of the film, Everything Everywhere All at Once only this was the one timeline.
As some of the scenes started repeating more than once with longer tender moments such as the gorgeous cinema scene with future level-headed CEO Vicky (Loretta Kung) and carefree romantic Erica (Lisa Hanssens) we were then able to piece together their tumultuous love story. The emphasis on Vicky hiding her relationship from her parents for decades due to fear and shame added layers to the complexity of their romance. Loretta’s facial expressions effectively portrayed Vicky’s guilt and sadness when confronted by Erica, with Lisa’s gentle physicality towards her showing great patience and understanding even though it wasn’t a fair situation to be put in.
Seeing their future selves (which the actors mirrored beautifully) and re-visiting familiar conversations about marriage and discrimination based on race and sexuality really hit home as even though there was some progress in the time that has passed, there is still so much more to be made.
The chemistry between Erica and Vicky in both past and present selves was undeniable, and every difficult conversation felt very real and organic. The ending was a perfect send-off that brought on misty eyes and the characters won the hearts of each audience member.
Now begs the question; would you fall in love with this person if you could see the end of the relationship? My answer is yes, in a heartbeat.
For anyone that has been in a relationship and is looking for a play that hits you at every emotional angle, then you must see Bright Half Life before it’s gone.
