A Review of Sunday Productions’ With All My Fondest Love

What happens to us after we die? What do we become? Fading memories and scattered objects are all that is left of us once the funeral is over and perhaps one day someone will remember us and try to piece these fractured things back together to create a person. Perhaps they will succeed, but the most likely reality is that there will be gaps in their knowledge, facts and moments missing from the overall picture. I am well aware that this is a maudlin and morbid way in which to begin a review, but it is also the topic of Noah Wild’s most recent play With All My Fondest Love which showed at The Burton Taylor Studio last week. Taking what he has learnt from the Writing Lives optional paper, Wild has constructed a play which tackles a lot of the questions we were taught to ask, framing the story around the sense of discovery that comes with writing a biography.

This particular story has the dual narrative of both Noah’s story as the protagonist and that of his paternal grandfather Harold. As an audience we were presented with an attic full of memories, the thrust layout drawing us into the space as though the audience was surrounded by the boxes of history. In a way that was exactly what was happening, with the set being made up of boxes of things and piles of odds and ends and books. In silence Noah (both character and actor) moved around the space, picking things up, rooting through objects, listening to Sinatra’s Stella by Starlight through his headphones. While this was an excellently framed immersion into the very real situation, the audience may have benefitted from the music playing over the speakers. This could have brought us further into the scene; however, perhaps the slightly uncomfortable sense that we were intruding on this personal moment was the intention. Soon enough, the awkwardness abated and Noah began to tell the story of his grandfather, his own story and the story of the objects around him, jumping between times and people as he sought to make sense of a collection of objects and events.

The entire narrative has been put together through a series of diary entries and letters, the title in fact being taken from the letters that his grandmother, Marlene, wrote Harold. These are all that remain of her, her own story becoming a footnote in her husband’s. Noah is quick to admit that he doesn’t know all the facts, far from it, and in places he speculates and likes to think he can picture what happened while being well aware that he will never know for certain. As for the parts he does know, he can be seen reading the diary entries, referring to objects and opening letters. The actor created patterns upon the stage, the empty space soon becoming stylistically cluttered as books, letters and train tracks were arranged – just for it all to be packed carefully away at the end, the memories becoming simply objects again. This whole play could have been an essay, a monologue delivered without the physicality that was worked into it and it still would have been a moving piece of literature, visually boring yes, but wholly possible. Instead, Wild clearly thought hard about why he was choosing to perform this eulogy rather than simply writing it. The monology was delivered naturally, as though he was talking to a friend as he rooted through his grandfather’s things, the tempo fluctuating as he told the highly narrative and then more emotional sections. Equally the actor used the entire space, moving in places, sitting and in others simply standing to deliver sections. This was a far from boring delivery that sought to do the story justice.

With beautiful language and a moving narrative, this was a wonderful piece of theatre. It addressed the many questions that arise when writing a person’s life, tackling issues head on rather than seeking answers that were simply not there. This was a story of an ordinary person, experiencing some ordinary and some extraordinary things, a personal story and a personable one. It was a situation familiar to all of us, a sense of grief and loss and that something is simply missing as we grapple with our own identity in conjunction with the past. Being thoughtful and unique, I found that I was moved and began to consider what I know about my those members of my own family who died before I was born. This all being said, there was a slight drag towards the end of the piece, or perhaps that was simply because I was trying desperately not to sneeze! Noah’s own story and how it was woven into the piece did not yet feel fully explored and I am curious to see whether this was a finished piece or whether he will continue to revisit and refine as he ages and is able to further parallel his experiences with those of Harold and Marlene.

Image courtesy of Freddie Houlahan