Last Rights. "The Last Acre" by Sean Riley. Oddbodies Theatre Company [review]

Abstract

We know, and absolutely don’t want to know, how a single action, a single impulse can change everything. This is what we mean by a life-or-death moment, that split second, as we call it, when something irrevocable occurs and it can’t be changed back. This is the moment that can’t be believed even when it is re-lived repeatedly, the moment that is still true when you wake up the next day. It is when we know our lives are never going to be the same again. "The Last Acre" is a good play which has been brought to the stage by a dedicated and very able company. As a study of family it conjures contradictions and complex intimacies vividly and unsentimentally, as a portrait of a family paralysed, both actually and metaphorically, it is able to show resolution and some hope without being simplistic.