Emma Hemingford’s Papatango Prize-nominated Foreverland explores the ethics of immortality with finesse, but falls down on character Summary
Rating
Good
In Emma Hemingford’s Foreverland, the world is divided into ‘fixers’ – those who have undergone non-reversible gene therapy enabling them to live forever – and ‘lifers’: those who live, age and die in the more traditional way. ‘Fixing’ is a financially divisive process, and only those with the funds are able to join the medical programme facilitating the surgery. Alice (Emma McDonald) and Jay (Christopher York) are sufficiently cashed up.
Hemingford does well to remind her audience that anti-aging medication is no longer the stuff of make-believe; in the show’s opening scene, Alice delivers a vital breakdown of the science behind gene therapy. In basic terms, if we add this protein here and lose another one there, our cells will never tire of replicating. Hence, everlasting life is achieved. As Hemingford points out in her show notes, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos is already investing in the development of anti-aging science, and cellular re-programming – previously trialled with success on mice – is being rolled out to humans. The immortality pro-con list is one that writers and creatives have been contributing to for years, but the questions raised by shows like Foreverland are starting to feel more urgent. Will life lose its value if there is no limit to it? Will we eventually tire of those we love if our relationships have no natural conclusion? For Alice and Jay, the answer to the second question is complicated; post-surgery, Jay picks up a drinking habit (despite his consultant’s explicit warning that substance abuse is not compatible with gene modification) and Alice starts to feel that he has lost interest in their life together. Things get better after the birth of their daughter Annie (Emily Butler/ Una Byrne), but Jay’s drinking continues, and the couple’s sex-life becomes performative at best.
Although Hemingford works hard to create a believable, three-dimensional relationship – we watch the years whirl by via a sequence of small, every-day interactions, good and bad – it is frustratingly difficult to emotionally invest in it due to some off-beat character choices. Alice’s initially endearing pep starts to grate after a while, and Jay, who displays red flags galore from the get-go, really leans into his less endearing qualities. So, while Foreverland’s themes remain engaging, it is a challenge to connect with the individual characters, making the central story conflict – Annie’s decision not to ‘fix’ – tricky to engage with. We just don’t quite like the characters enough to empathise. Annie’s character is also overly ‘heightened’, and her very legitimate qualms with the Weston Programme (that it is hugely exclusive, and that even those rich enough to sign on don’t seem particularly happy) are delivered in a slightly shouty, hard-to-digest way. A more level-headed character making the same points would have allowed the anti-fixing argument to stand taller.
That said, performances are strong across the board, with McDonald delivering a notably subtle take on the anxious Alice. And the show’s ambitious story timeline, spanning decades, also holds up well through Hemingford’s clever use of montage. The ideas discussed in Foreverland may not be wholly novel, but they will be forever fascinating.
Written by: Emma Hemingford
Directed by: Frederick Wienand
Foreverland plays at Southwark Playhouse until 19 October. Further information and bookings available here.