The overwhelming harm of grief is not an obvious premise for a comedy but the foundation of Sara’s present predicament in Yes, We’re Related, which enjoyed a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe and is now playing the studio space at The Other Palace Theatre.
A year on from their mother’s death, Saskia, Sara’s sister, arrives at her flat where they are having a party to mark the anniversary. Or they would be if Sara hadn't forgotten about it, failing to send out invitations or even get out of bed.
But Sara is a young woman in a mess. She has lost her part-time barista job and sleeps in a tent on the living room floor of the one-bedroom flat that used to be her mother’s, as a red squirrel has squatted the bedroom for the last eight months.
She hasn’t considered setting Gerald, the squirrel, free as she thinks he is a representation of their mother, whom Sara cared for through a terminal illness.
Much of the comedy for this play comes from the friction between the zanily chaotic Sara and the more practical Saskia. It is Saskia who turns up with a prepared speech, balloons and a personalised “in loving memory” banner, never mind that it has a spelling error.
Tagging along in more ways than one is Mark, Saskia’s overlooked fiancé, a well-intentioned blockhead adored by their mother and a regular hospital visitor as she was dying.
Fabian Bevan plays Mark, the annoying chump with a heart of gold, with energy and a boy-who-never-grew-up charm, and it is a slip of the writing rather than of the performance that his relationship with the pragmatic Saskia is disappointingly implausible.
Sara is played by Florence Lace-Evans who wrote the play and whose female-led theatre Lace-Evans Productions produces this short London run. She has written herself a great part in which she is engagingly confident, and in this writing debut she delivers a moving and thoughtful portrayal of the sisters’ grief.
Her play is also very funny in parts with some strong comic lines, but its contriving is often too apparent, with Clare Harner’s funeral poem ("Do not stand at my grave…") a saccharine-lined maudlin-fest, and Mark gets in the way, relinquished to a character in search of a purpose.
Eleanor Griffiths plays Saskia with a sincerity that at times elevates the text beyond its merit, and although director Fran Davies-Cáceres keeps the pace up, it is hard to avoid glimpses of the cogs turning.
Some finessing is needed here, but Lace-Evans’s first play is a seesaw ride of comedy and heartache still worth the taking.