In Danny James King’s Miss Myrtle’s Garden, life and death coexist. Acid-tongued Myrtle spends her days in her overgrown yard with her husband, Melrose, grandson, Rudy, and Rudy’s “close friend” Jason. But around the patch of grass, memories seep into the present through ghosts and flickering flashes, in a jumble of certainty and doubt.
That’s because, at 82, Myrtle has begun to lose her grip on reality. Taio Lawson’s inaugural production as the Bush theatre’s incoming artistic director is a full immersion into this disorienting, fragile mindscape. One moment, a scene unfolds as a naturalistic conversation; the next, the auditorium is plunged into pitch darkness, pierced by an eerie, rumbling soundscape. It’s a striking way for Lawson to make a creative entrance; but with so much happening onstage, the production tips into becoming overblown and chaotic.
At its centre is a tour-de-force performance by Diveen Henry as Miss Myrtle. Her sardonic put-downs (“being difficult is better than being easy”) paint her as a pillar of blunt-force resilience. Her sharp quips are crisply drawn, showing King’s gift for writing rich comedy. But as the scenes roll forward, it becomes heartbreakingly clear that Myrtle’s memory is faltering and she needs help.
Rudy faces a complicated future: what to do with Myrtle, and how to extract the information she guards about his dead father before time runs out. But Rudy also is keeping a secret of his own: Jason is actually his partner. Shame about who he is presses heavily on Rudy’s shoulders. Their chemistry, wonderfully encapsulated by the gentle, side-glancing performances of Michael Ahomka-Lindsay as Rudy and Elander Moore as Jason, is left to play out in the shadows. When both men move into Myrtle’s house, the weight of their unspoken love only deepens.
Designer Khadija Raza builds a neat circle of grass, decorated with real flowers and soil for the action to play out on. Here, Rudy battles Myrtle for shards of the past while willing her not to vanish into the depths of dementia. Even as the script meanders, their relationship is charged with unspoken pain, sure to pull at your heartstrings.
