Tomorrow

Matthew Lenton
Vanishing Point
Traverse Theatre

Tomorrow

In this moving play, Vanishing Point has worked hard to give viewers an idea of the terrors of extreme old age a few years early.

Tomorrow opens with the sight of mask makers at work in a barely lit scene reminiscent of Peter Greenaway movies.

Their purpose only becomes clear when George is waylaid while rushing to hospital to meet his baby Claire for the first time.

Instead, the thirty-something encounters a trio of carers who strip him of clothes and dignity, replacing them with a beautifully crafted mask and pyjamas.

At once, he becomes a helpless geriatric confined along with a quartet of fellows in a home.

They do little beyond tottering around like infants, reliving the old days and causing trouble, usually inadvertently.

This is the normality all of us have to look forward to, assuming that we make it to old age.

The aged are seen not only through the eyes of those caring but sometimes patronising carers looking after them but also, even more poignantly, a group of children, reminding us that man has seven ages.

Matthew Lenton and his team have done a remarkable job in recreating the difficulties faced by an ageing population but this can make for painful, if necessary, viewing.

Reviewer: Philip Fisher

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