(Left: John Maytham)
(Pitch-perfect performance and script make “To Life, With Love” a show not to be missed. Review by Margaret von Klemperer, courtesy of The Witness)
Venue: Hilton Festival
Written by Mike van Graan and performed by John Maytham, for me this one-hander was easily the pick of the shows I saw at this year’s Hilton Arts Festival.
With no props other than three wooden chairs, Maytham held his audience captivated for an hour, while dealing with subjects most of us would probably not want to spend too much time thinking about – ageing, infirmity, bereavement and death.
His character, Thomas Faulkner, is a man recording a video
for his family – his daughters, his sister and his nephew – with his
end-of-life instructions. Not that the end is particularly imminent, but having
lost his beloved wife Rachel, first to dementia and finally to Covid, and
having had an unpleasant diagnosis himself, he knows, as we all must, that it
will come. Sounds bleak? Curiously enough, it is ultimately uplifting.
Van Graan’s script is very clever and perceptive, revealing Thomas’s history and relationships and building up his persona as he talks. One of the great strengths of the character is his ordinariness – his life has been that of an everyman, nothing outrageous but ultimately completely relatable for the audience. And Maytham’s performance complements the script perfectly.
It would have been all too easy for the story to slip over into pathos, but Maytham keeps perfect control, never becoming histrionic or over-the-top, acting with a restraint that makes his performance all the more moving.
There is humour, regret and tears as Maytham takes his audience through the life of an ordinary man facing what faces everyone with courage and dignity. Pitch-perfect performance and script make To Life, With Love a show not to be missed. Let’s hope it makes a return journey to KZN. – Margaret von Klemperer