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Decent two-hand musical drama about wanting to end it all.Summary
Rating
Good
A pair of nameless strangers meet on an unspecified bridge with the same intention: to fall to their deaths. But instead of going through with their plan, they form an alternative pact to wait a few days and then take their lives together.
A few days stretches and stretches, and the pair’s friendship deepens despite their differences. One (Jason Tully) is flamboyantly camp, while the other (Ronan Radin) is much more reserved, as is shown in their bucket list selections: Tully’s character wants to try heroin, Radin’s fancies a spot of shoplifting.
It’s a touching relationship which the two actors bring to life with great skill and tenderness, whilst the smattering of original songs help to broaden a production that might otherwise have been a little limited in focus.
The plot touches on the reasons for the two men’s depression (mostly it seems the parents are to blame, or at least unsupportive) and there’s some dramatic mileage gained from their varying degrees of readiness. A very on-the-nose speech about the stigma attached to mental health compared to physical threatens to turn a sensitive drama into blunt polemic, but overall Suicide Pact succeeds in presenting a portrait of two tragically lost souls whose pain is effectively conveyed.
Written by: Jason Goodwin-Tully
Directed by: Charmaine K Parkin & Amelia Gardham
Produced by: ACIDflashback Productions
Playing until: This show has completed its current run
