Upstaged Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Taking inspiration from Cornelia Parker’s art installation, Cold Dark Matter: Exploded View – a never-ending silent explosion of a potting shed, its wooden shards perpetually frozen in mid-air – Shed: Exploded View is Phoebe Eclair-Powell’s 2019 Bruntwood Prize winner. It’s a hard-hitting, beautifully fragmented work exploring violence and relationships, female trauma and the language we use.
Performed by an incredible cast of six, the narrative centres around three interlinked couples of different ages: a young university student, Abi and her new boyfriend Mark; Abi’s out-of-sync parents Naomi and Frank, and an older couple, Lil, whose job as a nurse is increasingly under pressure as she struggles to care for her husband Tony, who has dementia.
Throughout the play’s 1 hour 40 minutes, we witness the lives of the three interlinked couples over three decades. Screens on the theatre’s balconies display the current year, helping us to navigate the narrative. Under Atri Banerjee’s slick, though sensitive directorial hand, the disciplined cast of six deliver a tricky (though I imagine extremely rewarding) text perfectly; overlapping dialogue occurs frequently as two different conversations are presented at the same time – it’s a complex structure, but one that kept me gripped.
Naomi Dawson’s stripped-back, intelligent design anchors around a shed, which is dismantled at the very beginning of the play. The frame, accompanied with a large spherical light, remains visible throughout the performance. Cast members chalk out key phrases from the play onto a triple revolve chalkboard stage. The words slowly smudge, leaving marks on the character’s clothes – suggestive of the passive of time and the imprints our life experiences leave on us.
This performance stays with you long after the clapping ends and the theatre lights go down. Phoebe Eclair Powell’s writing is truly profound; appealing to the head, in its structure, and also the heart, in terms of the tragic subject matter. Shed: Exploded View leaves audiences with a lot to reflect on following the performance – but also, very cleverly, asks the audience to remain active in searching for their own meaning/ narrative throughout the performance.
– Kristy Stott
Shed: Exploded View runs at the Royal Exchange Theatre until Saturday 2 March 2024.