Twine – The Yard Theatre, London

Twine, by Selina Thompson, is on now at the Yard Theatre, bringing to life a folkloric and thoughtful tale of adoption, separation and love.

Content warning: contains references to child death and grief.

Twine

We do like to spot a theme for the week’s theatre on the Salterton Arts Review.  And this week’s theme, I believe, is arriving at emotional truth through unusual means.  Yesterday we had The Shatter Box, which was certainly one way to go about it.  Today we have Twine, which is a remarkable but very different work.  Twine, by Selina Thompson, is a play about grief, loss and wholeness. It’s about adoption and separation. About love and family.  It is the story of Sycamore.  Or, more properly, of parts of Sycamore.  Seed (Nandi Bhebhe), Sapling (Angelina Chudi) and Bark (Muki Zubis) are fragments of herself created in moments of grief.  To bring Sycamore back into wholeness they must work together to confront the taboos of adoption, lay ghosts to rest, and be open to a new definition of love.

Let’s linger for a moment on those taboos, because they’re important.  A particularly powerful one is not to complain about a successful adoption. Sycamore, it seems, could be a poster child for successful adoption.  Her parents loved her deeply.  She is successful, thriving in a career.  And yet… The trauma of being taken from a family, no matter how that trauma manifests, is undeniable.  The what ifs.  The wonderings.  Longing for something lost or which could have been.  The small iniquities of being treated like an other, a problem to be solved.  Sometimes traumas are big, and sometimes they are a death by a thousand cuts.

For Sycamore, her trauma – her compartmentalising – was forged in particular moments.  Her removal from her birth family, for instance. When she found out a younger brother had died.  A difficult moment with her adopted mother.  The play reads almost like a very good therapy session (family constellations came up in conversation during the interval), in which these inner selves are seen and cared for, their needs met and acceptance given and received.  Although there is a wider message here (support, not separation), Twine also feels intimate, supportive and healing.

Creating Inner Worlds

Playing three parts of a whole is not an easy task, but Chudi, Bhebhe and Zubis do a wonderful job.  They each feel like an independent part of Sycamore, but they come together with a symmetry and love that sustains the three-in-one premise. Bhebhe as Seed is a particular highlight: the perfect embodiment of an inner child, with a wonderful singing voice besides.  Make that excellent singing voices for all three, actually.

Visually Twine is also very engaging.  Naomi Kuyck-Cohen, who designed sets and costumes, has clearly put the same love into them as the work radiates back.  It looks like a lot of manual effort went into both set and costumes, and I loved Seed’s felted hat as a typically thoughtful detail. Stylised trees represent Sycamore’s various families. They set out the stark contrasts yet each have their place: there is no judgement or heirarchy here. The trees create a dreamspace within which these parts of Sycamore can safely explore and understand themselves and their story.   Lighting by Joshua Gadsby, sound by Tingying Dong and music by Reisz Amos support this world ably.  And the three-in-one trinity is further brought to life through movement direction by Pauline Mayers (and fight direction by Carlotta di Gregori).

In my opinion the one or two details to elevate Twine even further would be reviewing the couple of times the choreography was at the expense of clearly making out song lyrics, and maybe a little trim of some slower segments to keep up the pace. But as a tribute to families who have experienced separation, it’s a beautiful thing.  As a consideration of the conscious and unconscious biases that sometimes determine those decisions, it’s food for thought.  And as a demonstration of healing and wholeness beyond trauma, it is powerful.

Everything I see at the Yard Threatre is so different, but so compelling in its own way.  Someone here has a real talent for spotting and nurturing potential.  A little like a seed or a sapling growing into a tall, strong sycamore, you might say.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Twine on until 21 September 2024.  More info and tickets here.