Review: There or Here at Park Theatre, London

There or Here 

Park Theatre, Finsbury Park

Director: Vik Sivalingam

Starring: Lucy Fenton, Manish Gandhi, Ursula Mohan, Chris Nayak and Rakhee Thakrar

By Lauren Codling

AS a couple converse in a hotel room abroad after dark, commenting on their sleep deprivation due to the time difference and change in environment, the audience can already begin to sense the creeping desperation the pair have for an addition to their family unit.

Written by Jennifer Maisel, There or Here tells of an American couple, Robyn and Ajay, who are attempting to "outsource surrogacy" from Ajay’s native India. Their relationship is seemingly strained; a cancer diagnosis and the struggles to conceive naturally mean the interactions between them are tense.

Lead actors Lucy Fenton and Chris Nayak play their neurotic characters well. Their wildly self-indulgent monologues with anonymous characters they encounter over various phone lines are vaguely irritating, although perhaps this is the point.

Does the fast food restaurant clerk really want to hear about Ajay’s past experiences with cheeseburgers? Judging by the clerk’s bewilderment and eagerness to put his order through as quick as she can, probably not. But as an audience, we can sympathise with Ajay as he seeks to spark up a connection with anyone he encounters.

The two-act show is fast-paced and choppy, although some sequences are slightly jarring and led to some confusion in terms of the timeline. Are we There or Here? At one point, one couldn’t be exactly sure.

In the second act, a dark twist to the tale drives the story in a completely new direction, but the conclusion is slightly unsettling, and somewhat unfeasible. Ajay’s solution is something that would possibly take place in a movie designed to make the audience cry, which sadly doesn’t come across well in a production whose characters are well developed and subtle enough that we can recognise them as real personalities instead of sensationalised storylines within a script.

In other words, it just didn’t ring true.

The other actors deserve some credit for their roles; actress Rakhee Thakrar, who plays a series of small roles in the story including the Indian surrogate mother who is renting out her womb to finance her conceited husband's dream of owning his own taxi, is extremely charming and brings something new to each of the multiple characters she portrays.

Ursula Mohan, who plays two characters - including Robyn’s mother Ellen - is an absolute scene stealer. When Ellen expresses her need for her daughter to take care of herself in the midst of her cancer battle, instead of using all her energy on the hypothetical child she wishes for so badly, is both brilliant and heartbreakingly sad.

However, by the end, it was hard to grasp what lessons we had learnt from the story as the actors took a bow – is technology driving us further apart? Is blood thicker than water? Do our home countries define who we are?

There or Here is a provocative piece, but it definitely had some moments that could have been constructed better.

We give There or Herethree out of five stars.

There or Here runs until 17 February 2018