Mary, husband Joe and teenage children Mazz and Kevin are not special, so they keep telling us at the start of Chris Goode’s devastating revival of Jo Clifford’s play, which was inspired by her experience of sudden death in the family. They muddle along like all families. Money is a bit tight. Irritations flair. Mary’s mother has dementia and is in a home. They are busy and going about their lives, not giving much thought to how they fit into the wider world in all its messiness.
Then one morning, while Joe (Michael Fenton Stevens) is out, Mazz (Nicola Weston) is sleeping off a hangover and Kevin (Nick Finegan) watches TV, Mary (Angela Clerkin) suffers a massive stroke. Death (played by Nigel Barrett) – who doesn’t carry a scythe or play chess – steps out of the audience to claim her. What follows is increasingly dreamlike and surreal as intense grief suddenly makes everyone more aware of the real world. The dislocating way that death creates a space for collective grief, as trauma cracks the security of family life, brings to mind the formal shock of a very different play, Sarah Kane’s Blasted.
Every One is not an easy watch, but it’s a rewarding one, and if the play and Goode’s production come perilously close to earnestness at times, the show still beats in rhythm with your own heart. This is a story about one family’s grief that reminds us to look at our own lives and decide what is and isn’t important. It also suggests that while we may never be able to impose order on the chaos, we can still try to change the world.
• At Battersea Arts Centre, London, until 19 March. Box office: 020-7223 2223.
