Theatre Review: Still Alice at The West Yorkshire Playhouse

As part of the Playhouse’s Every Third Minute Festival, the UK premiere of Still Alice comes to The Courtyard Theatre where LEO OWEN caught the show

Adapted by Christine Mary Dunford from the debut book by neuroscientist Lisa Genova, Still Alice investigates what it means to live with dementia. After fifty-year-old Alice (Sharon Small) is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, her family attempt to cope with the life-changing news, ever mindful of the genetic implications.

Dunford’s play first premiered in 2013 in Chicago and opens with Alice’s thoughts personified here by Ruth Gemmell, playing “Herself” as she thinks back to the death of neurons leading to her diagnosis. A series of vignettes follow, illustrating her growing memory loss as we witness Alice going to work in nightwear; putting her phone in the freezer and forgetting her own daughter’s name. Dates from June 2015 to February 2018 are projected onto a cloud-covered backing screen to illustrate how rapidly Alice’s memory deteriorates.

The show is in one continual 90-minute segment, perhaps emphasising how relentless Alice’s illness is as it gradually snatches away all the personal qualities and shared experiences that make her recognisable to loved ones. Designer Jonathan Fensom’s set depicts Alice’s whole house and is on stage in segments with the kitchen wheeling to one side to create the doctor’s office and visit to the neurologist. As the play progresses, the stage becoming increasingly empty, reflects how small Alice’s world has become and her increasingly uncluttered mind.

Seeing the acceleration of Alice’s memory loss is heart-breaking and only made worse by her futile attempts to fight her illness by testing herself and setting phone reminders. Small’s closing speech is powerful, Alice’s nurtured relationship with her daughter Lydia (Alais Lawson) moving and the show’s final scene poignant; Alice’s closing words, as a once Harvard professor of Linguistics, is to describe her own husband (Dominic Mafham) as a “nice handsome sad man”. While watching the stage version is unlikely to be as devastating as watching Julianne Moore’s Oscar winning turn in the 2014 film, those fresh to the story might need to pack some Kleenex.

Still Alice Shows in The Courtyard Theatre 9 February-3 March before continuing its UK tour: https://www.wyp.org.uk/events/still-alice/