I keep track of my professional and social engagements on a large, colour coded hard copy calendar. On Tuesday 30 October was scribbled “The Memory Plays”.

Ironically, I couldn’t recall a thing in connection with these words! I had to swallow my pride and phone John Smythe who masterminds Theatreview to ask where the heck and for what I was meant to be at 8.00 pm that evening!

It is BATS Theatre of course, and more specifically the Heyday Dome space, where an attentive crowd is gathered to watch a theatrical anthology: The Memory Plays, produced by Helen Vivienne Fletcher. There are three, and they are linked thematically, featuring women who for some reason or another, are troubled. Their plight in each case forms the premise for the unfolding action. 

It is the nature of those plights that piques and mostly holds the audience’s attention.

In ‘Ruminate’, writer Helen Vivienne Fletcher and director Ivana Palezevic throw us, without preamble, into an intriguing twosome – or is it a threesome? “Is this memory or reality?” asks a new boyfriend, referring to the haunting presence of his girlfriend’s former female friend, who materialises to discourage this new relationship with the taunt that he’s “a drop-kick”.

What I like best about this vignette is how successfully dramatic tension is maintained, as well as the final moments in which the boyfriend, by now understandably frustrated, tries to discourage his girl from accepting yet another interruption from the interpolator.

The question we’re left with is whether she won’t or can’t let go of the past.

‘We are the Experiments’, subtitled a thriller, is written by Oliver Probert, who also directs with Ralph Johnson.

I find this piece a tad difficult to follow, perhaps because of its quirky philosophical content, supplied mainly by Oliver (writer’s alter ego?). Oliver’s energy is nicely counterbalanced by the two other characters, one of whom is troubled by her vivid dreams. 

The dialogue is well written and fast paced, consisting of existential questions that the characters throw at each other, and the amusingly light hearted reactions. 

I won’t describe the denouement because it’s a thriller.

The last and longest piece, intriguingly titled ‘The Ides of June’ is written by Ethan D Rodgers, who also directs.

The scarlet couch which has featured as stage furniture so far is jettisoned in favour of a set of easels, positioned with their backs to the audience, and we have five characters.

“I like people who grow from adversity,” declares one, and that might well be the mantra for the unfolding action here. The eponymous June can’t get over an ex. The others on stage – one other woman and three men – try to be helpful as they interrelate amongst the paintings, their comments at times delightfully descriptive. 

We hear an emotional tarantula referred to, someone likes semi-gloss, and another complains, “You’re seeing the exhibition out of order.”

It’s difficult to say who has the hardest time – the eponymous June, or the hapless male who’s left centre stage at the play’s end.

All three parts of this anthology are characterised by tight writing, clever dialogue, deft direction and intelligent playing.

Altogether memorable.  

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