Review: It Wasn’t Like That, Lion and Unicorn Theatre

Electronic communication has a lot to answer for. Nowadays nothing is forgotten. We constantly see stories of people’s past words being used against them. Except what is often not considered is the context those words may have been typed in. Words on a screen don’t tell the whole story, and as too often happens, interpretation varies depending on the agenda of the person dissecting them. 

It’s this re-reading of past text messages between Zandalee Clarke’s Alex and the CEO of the company she joined as a 20-year-old that form the basis of Katherine Tempany’s It Wasn’t Like That.  The messages, together with the additional context Alex places around them, slowly build up a picture of a young woman obsessed with her older, married boss, who in the cold light of the fifteen-year retelling was clearly manipulative, abusing his position of power to get what he wanted from her. It becomes obvious she isn’t the first – nor likely to be the last – young woman he has taken an inappropriate interest in when he states it would be pointless Alex telling his wife anything because “she has forgiven me before”.

The core of the piece is certainly there. The way Alex tells the story once before going back over moments with a new viewpoint, one allowed by fifteen years of growing up, is its strength. It touches on issues of how context is everything, how the text messages tell a different story to what clearly really happened. “Facts don’t change but what they mean does” really sums up what Templay is interested in exploring and where more focus would work wonders. 

But while the core is there the presentation is not. It just never feels natural. The play begins with Alex greeting an old work colleague in a cafe, before launching into telling her coffee companion about what happened all those years ago. It quickly becomes a complex monologue presented as a two-way conversation, and it just doesn’t work in this format. There’s no bridge between that first greeting and giving this speech. Perhaps a different framing device would allow for an easier transition and a more natural feel. 

Equally in need of rethinking are many directorial decisions; it’s interesting to see no director actually credited, suggesting Templay took on that role. The play very clearly needs a third party to highlight its issues. A good director could help decide on who Clarke is talking to. At times she addresses the audience directly as if we are that coffee companion, but other times when she reads text exchanges, her gaze goes from side to side as if the text conversation is happening in person, not on a phone screen nor being retold all these years later. This lack of focus on who is being spoken addressed really is quite frustrating. As is the way text messages are read out; a stream of exchanges that at times needs space to allow us to understand who each line belongs to. Clarke’s performance is good, but she really needs a director’s guidance on how she delivers the complex script.

These issues can easily be resolved, however. And if done correctly then Templay’s script should work much better. The closing scenes especially are the strongest, focussing on how Alex reconsiders what really happened and how her boss clearly took advantage of his power and her youthful naivety; as she ponders late on, “the story is changing in the telling”. There’s a solid play here, one that tackles the issue of abuse of power and how context is everything. It just needs to think again about how it wants to present that story. 

You can read more about this play in our recent interview with the writer here.

Written by Katherine Tempany

It Wasn’t Like That plays at Lion and Unicorn Theatre until Friday 26 June