On Tuesday the 5th of April I went to the Rose Theatre in Kingston, London along with my friend to watch ‘A Monster Calls’. It is a low fantasy novel by Patrick Ness and has since been produced as a dark fantasy film in 2016 and is now emerging on stage in various theatres, it is centred around an emotion that many of us already know and that all of us will have to contend with at some point in our life: grief, and the guilt, anger and confusion that can come with it.
Our protagonist is thirteen-year-old Conor who is facing challenging issues at school, where he is mercilessly bullied, and at home, where he has to come to terms with his mother’s cancer and his dad has moved to America where he has another family. The production was very sensitive to all the issues it had to depict in such a short amount of time, the scenes were minimalist but changes in lighting and the use of sounds were effective in portraying the intense emotions and situations which unfurled before us. The ensemble also often moved unanimously which allowed them to manipulate things on stage into various things, for example: the branches of the yew tree that visited Conor at 12.07 am every night was shown through the thick ropes hanging above the stage – these ropes often felt like a cast member in themselves as they were moved with so much skill and morphed into many different things but it never felt repetitive, it was very magnetic the way everything was done you didn’t want to look away even if you could.
I frequently looked around me to see people sniffling or silently trying to find a tissue as I realised that everyone here was reflecting on something, whether that something was grief or other significant moments where we have fought to deny the truth and have eventually come to accept it as we realise, like Conor, that not accepting the reality of the situation places barriers of anger and frustration between you and others. Overall, I would definitely recommend ‘A Monster Calls’ as an introspective and mesmerising play that is accessible to all.
