What would you give to relieve a relationship you no longer have? Would you want to relive that relationship, warts and all? This is the premise of Lost Atoms, the ultra-stylised new work from Anna Jordan, directed by the Frantic Assembly team.
The production centres upon Robbie (Joe Layton) and Jess (Hannah Sinclair Robinson), who we meet in a dark and dingy room full of filing cabinets, soon scaled by the pair as they unlock the memories of their shared past, questioning the validity and accuracy of said reflections. It is a nice idea, and one that offers a great deal of potential, with their charmingly awkward very first meeting, their crazy golf first date, a chaotic weekend away and a devastating personal loss all being honed in on in this very fraught, and at times charged, two-hander. Yet the circumstances of why Robbie and Jess are reuniting are unclear, and the production relies heavily on its, albeit very impressive, physical work, directed by Frantic Assembly’s Artistic Director Scott Graham, to maintain much of the piece’s intrigue.
As Robbie, Layton is effective in drawing out his anxiousness and his vulnerabilities as he navigates his new relationship with a much more adventurous partner. Layton succeeds in exploring Robbie’s desperation to hold the pair together, and there are some deft moments, particularly in the second half, where Robbie’s longing to keep the relationship going becomes clear. That said, Jordan’s script keeps Robbie a little too tied up in contradictions and complexities, never really fully exploring them with full vigour. His difficult relationship with his family is only somewhat explored, while, despite being a victim in the relationship, the plot lacks a feeling of jeopardy to make his vulnerable position interesting.
It is here that the script’s limited depth causes some problems. This is mostly seen, though, through Jess’ character. Hannah Sinclair Robinson does well to create Jess’ enthusiastic, and at times chaotic, character, but like Robbie, the uncertainty of why these characters have to meet and tear through painful old memories is never fully explained. Jess, by the end of the piece, is depicted as the ‘wrong-doer’ in the relationship, yet the script spins too much to make Robbie the problem, and Jess merely drifts in consequence by the end. Indeed, a little reworking of the end would be beneficial here, if not just to balance out the blame across the relationship a little more.
That said, it is undoubtedly the physical work that makes this production so standout, with Graham’s direction combining nicely with the inventive set design crafted by Andrzej Goulding, enabling both performers to quickly scale the filing cabinets with speed to move from memory to memory. This is reinforced with a moving platform which elevates the pair into happier, more intimate moments, and there is something effective about seeing the pair glide and hover over their shared past in slow, deft movements.
By the end of the piece, it is hard to fully engage with the pair without knowing truly why they are there in the first place. The brutally emotive moments of Jess’ miscarriage are starkly performed in physical theatre form, but other moments are left unclear, with conversations with absent parents, unheard TV footage and an unnecessarily long script all denting the momentum that is far better during the choreographed sequences.
For Robbie and Jess, just like Lost Atoms, where they go from here next is unclear. There is a spark in there somewhere, but for both the partnership and the production, this is dimmed by too many contradictory choices.
