I saw the play You Look Okay To Me

this evening I saw the show You Look Okay To Me, which is on at Theatre Deli as part of the Voila! theatre festival. I don't generally seek out shows about chronic illness - I feel like I already understand the subject more intimately than I would like... but I was there for complicated work reasons that I won't go into here. and, well, this post is written to say how good I found it, and to encourage you to see it. it is on tomorrow!

why was it so good? well, to get the table stakes out of the way - it was a show written about chronic illness, by someone with chronic illness, and it got to the complicated places that are familiar to me and it did not spend its time trying to do basic 101-level intros for people who don't know how that works. or, I mean, I'm not saying it isn't accessible, but it trusts you to come with it as it goes deep.

and it's surprising and funny - it makes choices you weren't expecting. you can have the scene where the doctor shrugs off concerns, talks about how it must be all in your head. yes, a good thing to show. but the choice that really lifts it is to play out that interaction as high camp, talk dirty to me, the doctor unrobing his white coat as he tells her her blood results look perfectly healthy.

or, parts of the writing - just deft stuff, the way that the boyfriend is characterised, is a specific person in specific ways. his knowledge of animal facts, his distrust of metaphor.

and the acting! good acting! acting that, even when the artifice of the show is foregrounded, still makes you believe in the characters and their relationships. shifting from easy intimacy to I-own-this-shit writhing without apparent effort.

and, like, speaking of effort - what has to be remarked on is the way that the ethos of the show extends beyond the world of the show and into how it's put on. the script has multiple breaks for rest, something signalled up front and then marked throughout the performance. and when I say breaks for rest - the lights stay low, the actress lies still on the bed which is most of the stage, and we wait while she rests to carry on. and it's easy to talk about this being a gimmick... but I've been this person, I've thought about - can I do this specific thing, where will I have a chance to rest, if I don't do this then maybe I will be able to do that, but I still need to plan for whether I can't, after all... and, like the main character says, "I hate how good I am at pretending I'm well". it's easiest to sweep that behind the curtain, to do the labour and not show it. it's messy and complicated and difficult to expose that, it's additional labour to convey the labour you are already doing. it's tiring to tell people you are tired! but this is a show which does in fact do that. it talks about it on the stage but it also enacts it in the way that it is performed. which is a deft fucking thing to do - but hopefully it also makes it more possible to perform. I mean also, I very much notice that the show is set up so that Anna can perform lying down or sitting up and only very occasionally standing. that's baked into the show. and that doesn't lessen the show, it strengthens it. the message is within the frame of the show, and the message is also part of how it is framed.

one thing I felt lucky about when I got ill was that I knew people who had been chronically ill for a long time. and that I could both learn from them, but also that I knew about their work, and I knew that they had made interesting, complicated work from within their illness. I am someone, for my sins, who does find a lot of meaning from my creative work. and to know that there was the potential to still do that work, even from my sickbed - if I had to give up a lot of other things, then I could make it through, if I could keep that.

and watching this show, it reminded me of those feelings and times. it wasn't just good at representing chronic illness. it was good, full stop - it made smart choices and did things I admired. it was made by people with chronic illness, it could only have been made by people with chronic illness - and it was good, it was doing things I had not seen elsewhere before. I have spent too long in my bed, watching the world pass me by, wanting to be part of it, wanting to make a mark. and this show was made by someone who has had that same experience, it depicts that same experience of life passing by and becoming a ghost unable to touch it. and yet - here we are! at Theatre Deli! telling that to be a lie! it is not inevitable, it is difficult, but it is possible for new and exciting things to enter that larger world via your narrow bed.

anyway, apparently they want to bring it to Edinburgh. I hope they manage to do that. and it's on tomorrow (which is the 8th November), if you're in London & free!