Plagues and Tangles
Royal Court Theatre, London SW1
3/5

THIS harrowing new drama about the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease by Nicola Wilson follows Megan and her family as they discover and deal with her diagnosis.

That devastating news is compounded by the fact that Megan (Monica Dolan)is suffering from the “familial” variant which caused the death of her mother.

Now, as well as affecting her, the possibility of the disease threatening her son and his newborn child, her grandchild, looms menacingly large.

Reflecting the mental disintegration experienced by the ailing Megan, the play’s narrative is decidedly non-linear and the audience is tossed between times and moments in disorientating fashion.

The rapid shifts between Megan’s first flirtations with her soon-to-be husband Jez and their life with their two teenage children makes clear the devastation and loss the disease brings to the families of those affected by it.

The production repeatedly disorientates as it recreates the abject confusion sufferers of the disease experience.

Nowhere is this more affecting than in the play’s closing moments when it is suggested that Megan’s husband Jez had known about her diagnosis from their first meeting.

This directly contradicts what the audience is told earlier and, suddenly, everything is open to question. This new sense of distrusting previous “knowledge” is profoundly unsettling.

The performances are strong, with Dolan and Ferdy Roberts as Jez impressively conveying the grief, pain and confusion the disease brings. Rosalind Eleazar, in an excellent debut as the young Megan and Robert Lonsdale as Jez poignantly draw us into a relationship that goes through so much.

There’s much to commend but at times Wilson’s script veers dangerously toward the mawkish, as when Megan tells her dead teenage daughter: “I don’t know who you are but I know I loved you.”

The play’s subject is already emotive but Wilson layers sadness and misery on top of tragedy — the addition of teen pregnancy and then a young daughter who dies taking drugs for the first time, threaten to overwhelm.

At best, the plot lines show the multiple and repeated effects of the disease across generations but, at worst, they are overwrought and muddy the issues.

Runs until November 21, box office: royalcourttheatre.com