Review: That Face

Reviewed by Jodi Yeats

The most astonishing thing about this play is it was written by a 19-year-old – very well written. That Face tells a compelling story of a dysfunctional family, with a mentally unstable mother, called Martha and played by Jennifer Ward-Lealand, at its fulcrum.

The only giveaway it is written by someone very young is, arguably, its relentless darkness. I, at least, went through a stage of being fascinated by the terrible aspects of life, without a need to balance that. There are a couple of laughs, but most of this play is terrible and disturbing.

As tensions build to an explosive conclusion with all family members finally in one room, it is only Shane Bosher’s excellent direction, and each member of the cast’s superb acting that rescues the play from bottoming out into melodrama.

That said, it does stay on a firm path that has the audience riveted and, for most of us, making emotional connections with our own family dysfunction.

The set is completely white, apart from the littered floor of Martha’s bedroom, where she lives with her son Henry (Dan Weekes) who has left school to try to help her. Martha is addicted to drugs and alcohol and, as she transfers the loss of her husband into an overly sexualised relationship with her son, she drags Henry down with her.

Hanging above the stark set is a sculptural arrangement of fluorescent lights that flash on and off to loud contemporary music between sets, and sometimes tinges the set during scenes, creating a contemporary mood that reminds you the play was written in 2007.

Jennifer Ward-Lealand, a consummate professional, is remarkably disheveled and deranged as Martha, in stark contrast to the beautiful French woman she played in Le Sud only a couple of weeks ago.

Andrew Grainger puts in a remarkable performance as her ex husband, who has abandoned his family and seems to be returning from Hong Kong mainly to tidy things up. His understated performance underlines his emotional incapacity and the harm it has done.

This is a cutting-edge play in every sense, and a coup for Bosher and his crew to have pulled it off. Deep in thought at the end of the play, the only consolation was thinking, “At least my family wasn’t that bad.”