It is billed as a magic show about grief but The Trick has nothing up its sleeve. Eve Leigh’s new play, about the struggles of old age and mourning, falls into the trap of emotionally manipulative music and sentimentality without so much as a cup-and-ball sleight of hand to misdirect us. The humour rarely lands and every line about loss is piled with emotion, so that its desire for us to be sad becomes overbearing.
Elderly widow Mira (Lachele Carl) is comforted by the ghost of her husband, Jonah (David Verrey), who died seven months ago. Carl is too supple in both mind and movement for us to believe in her frailty, and her relationship with Verrey doesn’t hold enough force to make her inability to move on feel credible.
Everything about The Trick is almost interesting: the morphing structure, veering from variety act to scientific explainer; a session of brain-freezing ice-cream gorging; a recurring search for the trick behind a good life. Ani Nelson and Sharlene Whyte have fun as conniving plumbers trying to dupe Mira out of her money, but the story goes randomly off course.
In one shaky palm-reading scene, Nelson determines the future love, life and death of an audience member. It’s an uncomfortable moment and could easily go wrong depending on the individual’s health.
Director Roy Alexander Weise tries to inject a jazz-hands pizazz into the bland gloom but tips into cliches: the blown leaves and almost-touching hands are eye-rollingly cringeworthy. The sweet ending may tug at some hearts, but frankly, these are easy topics to hurt us with, and it’s not done with enough delicacy to really enchant.
The Trick is at the Bush theatre, London, until 23 March.
