The Promise review

Establishing an elegiac tone from the outset, this bittersweet drama from deaf-led theatre company Deafinitely Theatre gently explores the complex challenges faced by deaf people who experience dementia. Co-written by Melissa Mostyn and director Paula Garfield, the bilingual production is delivered primarily in British Sign Language, alongside passages of spoken English and seamlessly integrated captions.

The story centres on deaf educator Rita, following her from her first day as a literature teacher at a specialist school, through to the last months of her life, as she gradually loses her memories and drifts apart from her son, Jake. Along the way, the clunky, often declamatory script touches on a range of tangentially related subjects, from the damaging legacy of Thatcherism, to the AIDS crisis, to the financial burden borne by families in need of home carers.

Garfield sets an unhurried pace, allowing characters more than enough time to stew in their anxieties. Striking moments of tenderness, compassion and poetry stand out among often intentionally banal conversations. Towards the play’s end, as Rita’s recollections become increasingly unreliable, scenes begin to repeat themselves, with small changes charting the character’s gradual deterioration. The rapid shifts between these scenes are accomplished with slick fluidity, thanks in part to the flexibility of Paul Burgess’ uncluttered set, which features a dove-grey wall riddled with hidden doors, each opening on to a different, unexpected space: a refrigerator, a closet or a surprising vista of cherry trees in bloom.

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