A tragicomedy of retribution and guilt!

A Tragicomedy Of Retribution And Guilt!

On a night where XR protestors lined the street outside London's Trafalgar Studios, where the extensive police presence heightened the tension in the air - I was excited to attend the world premiere of Sarah Rutherford's new play, The Girl Who Fell. And as topical and relevant as those XR pamphlets I received are, so is a play centred on one of modern-day society's biggest challenges - social media.

This poignant, offbeat and sometimes provocative play is presented by Stage Traffic Productions and Eilene Davidson, with direction by Hannah Price. Starring Claire Goose as Thea, mum to teenage Sam who recently ended her own life - this being the catalyst to all we see unfolding before us in Trafalgar's snug Studio 2. Twin siblings, Billie (played by Rosie Day) and Lenny (Will Fletcher in his professional debut), are Thea's lasting link to her daughter. Sam's friend and boyfriend respectively, they may or may not have known her deepest secrets. Secrets, or more accurately the answers they may reveal, that her mother is desperate to discover. Add to the mix Navin Chowdry as Gil - initially presented as a ray of hope and new beginnings within a sad sad tale, but as we soon discover harbours his own demons and shares a connection to all their lives that feels like a betrayal when all is revealed.

No generation before us has had to navigate the magnitude of sites and apps that fall under the "social media" umbrella; so it's a great premise to have a play with this monstrous entity as a lurking antagonist. However, the focus of The Girl Who Fell was not the dangers of social media, but rather that all-consuming feeling of guilt. Feelings manifested from ill-planned actions or from the grief of simply being left behind. And so the play is less about what drove Sam to fall to her death, spurred on by teenage-angst mixed with the wrath of social media, and more about Thea, the mum who cannot reconcile her own actions with the unfathomable outcome, and her journey to temper her unease. 

A Red Flag To Weaponizing Social Media

Rutherford's inspiration for the play comes from a true story she came across about a parent using her child's social media account against her, in effect weaponizing it. The more Rutherford investigated the behaviour depicted in the story, the more she found this was not an isolated occurrence and she cleverly coined the phrase "sharenting" to describe it; for the aim of these parents was to shame their children.

As we learn of Thea's likely culpability in the death of her daughter, we experience a carousel of emotions. Rotating from empathy towards this mother's obvious bone-deep grief at the loss of her child, to the shock and out-raged ire at her short-sightedness and callous handling of her teenage daughter's online misgivings, then back to empathy as we each recollect a time we made our own hot-headed decisions or stupid mistakes. Rutherford's dialogue sees Thea claim that she "was seduced" by the prospect of shaming her daughter, of seeking out a last-ditch no-holds-barred attempt to scare her straight... Unfortunately for Thea, as these things usually do, so it began a life of its own. Gaining traction out there somewhere, available to all on the internet, adding to her daughter's already stained online reputation. I felt for Thea as the extent of her desperation becomes evident, albeit begrudgingly, after all, what mother would do such a thing? Was she really that naive to the consequences? 

It is no doubt a dramatic piece but it is littered with humour. Thankfully the audience is allowed to laugh, given the subject matter and intimate quarters of Studio 2, that is a good thing. The lighter moments are mostly brought to us by the youthful twins, in their brutally honest and innocent exploration of this mammoth event - the death of their friend. An event that has altered their lives and has them swaying between thoughts of retribution and guilt.

Where the play falters for me further along in the production, is the out of place side-steps with new tidbits of information dropped in, which at this stage seem irrelevant. From an illicit extra-marital affair to recounting being accosted in public; tangents that though intended to strengthen character backstories or their emotional standing, serve little in driving the narrative forward. These interludes detract from what should remain the focus of the play: a teen's tragic death by suicide, caused in some part by social media, and the turmoil of those left behind in the aftermath. In what is the show's final turning point, we see Thea, and Gil in his misguided support, stoop to a level of desperation that while superbly acted, is quite shocking. It left me feeling very uncomfortable though logically I understood this scene was there to highlight Thea's utter despair - her desperation in finding answers, in being "there" with her daughter, and to some extent, in just total oblivion.

As a parent with young kids, I came away with a nagging feeling of unease - but that was probably the point of this inventive production, to make us think of the wider picture, the unintended dangers this online-age has introduced to us. The ever-evolving online world parents are often uninformed about. It's a play I'd like to bring my kids to when they're a little older so I sincerely hope this limited run at Trafalgar Studios won't be its last, and if it is reworked just a little in the meantime, I think it can shine that much brighter.

View our show pages for more information about The Girl Who Fell, Trafalgar Studios 2.