The Fever Syndrome - Hampstead

Yes & was looking forward to tomorrow's matinee but "rescheduled" which was annoying. Definitely one for a matinee though as turns out to be 2 hours 40!

I was thoroughly enjoying this last night, until the final scene, which felt like it had been written by someone else. The well-rounded and entirely believable characters suddenly morph into behaviour completely at odds with the people we have come to know over the preceding 150 minutes, seemingly just to have some sort of conclusion. It didn't ring true; it rather jarred.



Which was a pity, since The Fever Syndrome is excellently written and directed until that point. There's not a weak link in the cast, and Lindsay is on top form as the patriarch with Parkinson's disease. Writer Alexis Zegerman successfully avoids the Stoppard trait of having experts speak science as though they have just Googled it; here, the family members' dialogue on medical matters is convincing.

The play's title refers primarily, not to the father, but to a Periodic Fever Syndrome (PFS) condition endured by one of his grand-kids. It also acts as an unsubtle metaphor of the effects on the extended family.

There is a lot going on at any one point including some concurrent dinner conversations, and, despite its length, the piece moves at a fast pace. I found myself chortling regularly at the foibles and mannerisms, particularly the put-upon son-in-law Nate who always seems to say the wrong thing. But, let's be clear, this is no comedy; it's quite grim and serious. Even the interruption of a jolly Danny Kaye song at the piano is a mocking attack on Nate.

The downstairs of the Myers family house forms the stage-level set, with assorted bedrooms, and a ladder to a loft behind and above. Note that the front corners of the Stalls will have a restricted view of the action in some of these recessed rooms. From centre front, the view was good, but the bed at the back of one room was hidden.

You could argue that there is little originality plot-wise here, and that might be true, but Zegerman manages to coalesce an insightful discourse on a little-known condition into a worthwhile watch.

I'd reckon the small Hampstead auditorium was only about three-quarters full, which means that a lot of people are missing out on a production that deserves an audience. It could do with a better ending though.

Four stars.

Act 1: 19:33-20:48
Act 2: 21:10-22:18

I'd forgotten about the Mets jokes, but I also found them a bit weak and annoying. It was very well-written about the illnesses - Robert Lindsay's character confronting his own deterioration, the impact on family relationships of a very dominant parent degenerating physically and mentally, the anxiety around the granddaughter's illness; and the medical science info was worked into the dialogue very well. But the basic family drama felt a bit trite, and there was just too much crammed into the script, to the point where more than one conversation was going on during the dinner and I couldn't hear what was being said. The final tying up of loose ends felt rushed and quite unlikely. Solid performances all round, and I liked the set very much.

Meh, this was ok. Plot wise it was so so, the acting was alright, but I wasn't always convinced by some of their accents. I just really struggled to get invested in any of the characters, they were all so unlikeable. I wasn't a fan of the way the characters kept talking over each other and holding multiple conversations at once, because then it just became a jumble of noise and that scene was basically lost to me. The set design was cool though - I enjoyed all the little rooms stacked on top of each other, although it felt a little claustrophobic at times. I also wasn't a fan of the scene change music. It felt very much like a forced 'end scene' as if someone has literally tried to make it as obvious as possible that the action is now moving from this room and this pairing to this other room with this other pairing now JUST IN CASE YOU DIDNT NOTICE. The presentation of the various illnesses seemed very realistic and well researched though.

In the program she talks about how she's married to an American and half her family is American, which is why she feels comfortable writing in this genre!

I'm still looking forward to seeing this; I enjoyed Alexis Zegerman's previous play, Holy sh*t at the Kiln and I like talky, discursive plays about families, often dysfunctional, so am hoping the varying opinions are a question of personal taste. It would be a shame if after so promising a start, this wasn't seen as the progression people expected from the writer, who certainly impressed me and left me keen to see more of her work.