Let Us Go Then, You And I
Production Photo Courtesy Of Seon Simpson
Adapted from the verse of T.S. Eliot, directed by Seon Simpson and performed by Simon Sweeney, Orla Graham, Aimee McGoldrick and Matt Cassidy, Let Us Go Then, You And I is about exactly what its title implies - letting go. An attempt at letting go of all inhibitions and pressures in a battle to cope with social anxiety, the maintenance of individual pride amidst collective demands.
The stripped-back production has no obviously coherent narrative, preferring instead to make its point through poetry and deliberately stilted, naturalised prose wedded to the everyday lives of four socially anxious students. Played out as a series of jerky movements from Sweeney, Graham, McGoldrick and Cassidy on the stage of Belfast's Accidental Theatre, it is observational, confrontational and contemplative theatre, with the mimicry convincingly heightened for dramatic reverberance.
At one point, there are repeated orders for pizza and garlic bread, the very kind of things one would consider "student food" - an easy way of satisfying taste buds and keeping going. But what is momentarily fulfilling is detrimental to the mind. Everything spent or consumed hastily precedes a spell of guilt upon reflection, the kind of guilt that ebbs away at our characters' mental and physical state.
Not subtle in the slightest, but extremely effective, Let Us Go Then, You And I is both painful and challenging in its unique confusion, a mirror to aspects of life that few would know how to react to but are enlightened by understanding. In an age where openness about mental health is prominent, it couldn’t be more relevant.
Simon Fallaha
Let Us Go Then, You And I was staged at Belfast's Accidental Theatre.