An honest sharing of a unique perspective on the state of the mental health care system, that has all the elements for heartfelt story telling but doesn’t always match its potential. Rating
Good
Silent Approach is a one-hour retelling of the harsh truth of the twenty-eight days spent on a psychiatric unit by serving police officer Rebecca House. Based on House’s true story, it offers an insight into the workings of both the police and health systems, and how they view and treat mental health.
The set, consisting of a bed, a privacy screen and a couple of metal chairs that scream the neutral officiality of both hospital and police, reads clearly, giving us an unambiguous first look into the nature of Silent Approach.
Marcella Hazell in the lead role as B, handles the script by Caroline Lamb easily. She comes into her own in a scene opposite Elka Lee-Green, who looks comfortable in the role of Therapist, with her gentle warmth and natural line delivery, which has its own distinctive rhythm and character. This scene shifts from a two-hander into a monologue to the audience, and contrasts with the internally-focused B of the start of the play, where she converses with her own inner voices and we simply watch on. In this monologue, handled slickly by Hazell, we are led into the vivid back story of B’s working life as a serving officer. There is a layered stage picture, with Lee-Green tentatively animated in the background, never pulling focus but always adding to the performance given by Hazell.
Joyce Branagh, multiroling as Mum, Nurse and Instructor, shows her ability to shift characters so it’s easy to feel safe with her on stage and enjoy the moments when she’s there. Her Nurse, in particular, has a straight to the point approach to care-giving which is lacking in warmth.
This is a production that covers a lot of ground, moving through the moments before detainment, all the way to B reestablishing her life afterwards. For the most part, it maintains momentum in covering that scope. However the use of a projector, voice over and some of the scene changes, do hinder the overall momentum on occasion, meaning that the production has to work hard to get us back with it.
The use of the projector during a scene where it appears that we are participants in an in-house police training session works well and teases a moment of comedy, but doesn’t lean into that potential far enough and ends up feeling a little energetically limp. The production suffers slightly from a lack of fire. Big moments don’t have the emotional fuel to them that they could have. The danger of the Scowl Girl, another patient on the ward with B, never really feels convincing. The moment of a mother seeing her daughter put on a ward, or the impact of B being told that she can’t go back to her previous post at work, don’t pack a punch. There’s a tendency in the writing to lean towards telling the audience what is happening rather than letting us experience it. The ending, however, does eventually emotionally grab us, with its full circle moment of B and Scowl Girl meeting again in different circumstances; that alone does stay with you afterwards.
All the elements are there and the devices used in this production are creative and thoughtful. With more drive and conviction behind the characters’ objectives and desires, an audience could really leave feeling like they had emotionally invested in B’s highs and lows.
Based on the book Police to Paranoia by Rebecca J. House
Written by Caroline Lamb
Directed by Helen Parry
Produced by Rebecca J. House
An S.I.S – Strength In Struggles production with Dangerous To Know
Silent Approach has now completed its run at the Etcetera Theatre.
