Theatre Re, the company responsible for The Nature of Forgetting, describes itself as "one of the UK’s leading visual theatre companies which blurs the lines of traditional performance by combining original live music and striking physical theatre to create world-class non-verbal productions."
At the start of the action, the audience sees a raised area surrounded by costume racks full of clothes and a solitary man sitting motionless on the stage. This is Tom, who is the subject of the play, 55 years old and afflicted with early stage dementia.
As the action proceeds, the raised area houses four old-style school desks with matching chairs and the provision of chopsticks to represent pens and other items. The furniture is part of the storytelling and is constantly rearranged in different formations to represent a bed, a car, the base for a bicycle, a crib, a pram and much more.
This is often accompanied by sounds produced by the small orchestra, sometimes used to emphasise running footsteps or aspects of relationships and sometimes to reflect intense emotional states.
Since the action is non-verbal, the performers express themselves through mime, dance and more abstract physical theatre forms of movement. Communication is clear and occasionally complemented by long silences which allow time for reflection.
Much of the action leads us back to the initial scene, so we follow Tom’s earlier life through all the things he’s forgotten or can only remember as shadowy memories. We follow him through his school life, early friendships, disinclination to work, his relationship with his mother, the girlfriend he falls in love with, the baby and subsequent marriage. An exciting and unexpected episode takes place on the bike.
An abstract scene accompanied by anguished music from the orchestra shows Tom at a later stage struggling with his condition, possibly confused and angry.
There is a small cast which includes Guillaume Pige as Tom, Luna Tosin as Isabella / Sophie and Callum Littley, Claudia Marciano, Henry Webster and Nathan Gregory in other parts. This is very much a team effort with each actor au fait with the production style and experienced physical theatre performers.
It was interesting to observe and talk to some members of what was quite a large and diverse audience. The school party of GCSE students were presumably there for the performance style, which would have been instructive; while older people might have been members of local dementia groups or individuals who had direct family experience of the condition. Some older members were beginning to shift in their seats as the play proceeded, but for most, this production would have been thought-provoking and helpful.