Review: Lifers, Southwark Playhouse

Synergy Theatre Project are an award-winning company whose groundbreaking work engages with the penal system and those with lived experience of it. Their new play, Lifers, at Southwark Playhouse Borough tells the tale of Lenny, a 75 year old jailed man developing dementia. Writer Evan Placey delivers a meticulously crafted piece of work that not only offers a stark and emotive story about one incarcerated individual, but comments incisively on our wider society and how it deals with the elderly and vulnerable. Researched with and alongside prison communities, it voices experience of a broken prison system that focusses on punishment rather than rehabilitation, and questions personal responsibility for acceptance of it.

Lenny (Peter Wight) is starting to forget things, his memories becoming muddled, and it’s been noticed by prison guard Mark (James Backway). Lenny’s already using a walking frame, is in pain and having difficulty dressing himself. But Mark’s job is to have a duty of care rather than to care and his human instinct to help is denied by a system that dehumanises those at their most fragile, even as their life ends. 

Pacey’s script offers real laugh out loud dark humour, but is also challenging and utterly compelling in its detail. The characters are used to inform, each bringing a distinct perspective and reflecting on roles in the system, our history and culture. All are familiar without becoming stereotypes, and brilliantly performed by a sharp ensemble. Wight is excellent as Lenny, cumbersome and sluggish as failing mental capacity drags him down, but exhibiting mercurially violent tendencies that remind us why he is in for life. Sam Cox as Norton and Ricky Fearon as Baxter threaten to upstage at times with their delightfully entertaining portrayals of his fellow inmates; problematic and full of banter maybe, but also healthily depicting found family and community. Mona Goodwin shines in supporting roles linking healthcare in prison and outside as she dexterously depicts the power struggles and human fragility that the system exacerbates. Amongst a great cast, Backway stands out as Mark and then as Simeon, Lenny’s son, demonstrating a breadth of ability as he shifts from troubled prison guard to traumatised victim of crime. He draws the audience in, adding a powerfully believable, human dimension to the heart-wrenching dilemmas depicted.

Director Esther Baker keeps the space intimate, focussed on the characters, while allowing
Tony Simpson’s dramatic lighting design to add definition and atmosphere. It’s at times chilling and institutional, yet slippery as Lennie’s thoughts drift and the characters perform memories: alternative dimensions become almost conceivable, where deeds might be reimagined and different outcome made possible.

The play becomes absorbingly complex as the microcosm reveals connected truths. Difficulties in the prison system are spotlighted – from staff turnaround to issues with access to healthcare and social support, often dependent on budget. But there’s general familiarity in the lack of respect for older people. Questions of personal responsibility arise on how dehumanisation can become acceptable. And just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, revelations cause everything to twist, so we’re never on solid ground. Lenny’s crime is totally unacceptable, but Lifers explores possible causes of such social malfunction – the toxic masculinity and harmful norms that create a breeding ground for violence. 

This play makes space for all sides of the story but doesn’t attempt easy solutions. It does leave us with huge food for thought and the suggestion that change can be possible if we want it. Perhaps rather than perpetuating this brutal situation through inaction we should draw on our humanity and at least aspire to make rehabilitation and care an outcome, making ourselves better humans in the process? 

Written by Evan Placey
Directed by Esther Baker
Design by Katy McPhee
Costume Design by Stella Cecil
Lighting Design by Tony Simpson
Sound Design by Sarah Weltman
Dramaturg by Neil Grutchield
Produced by Synergy Theatre Project

Lifers runs at Southwark Playhouse Borough until Saturday 25 October.