Rather inaccurately, Jumpy describes itself as a play about sex. If anything, sex is merely a tiny part of a larger story about a mid-life crisis, about teetering on the edge of sanity as a feeling of powerlessness against the outside world chips away at all the reassurances of self-control.
It opens with Tilly, a moody 15 year old about to go out drinking to celebrate the birthday of her heavily pregnant friend, impatiently berating her mother’s concerned questions in a bid to get out of the door. At first it seems as though we are to be faced with a story of (somewhat clichéd) teenage rebellion and angst, but as the play progresses, it reveals a concern with more deep-seated feelings of confusion and vulnerability that are shown to be as prevalent at fifty as they are at fifteen.
The mother, Hilary – a neurotic middle-class woman in her fifties who suffers from panic attacks on the tube and eagerly turns to a diminishing supply of red wine to get her through the day – is reliving an adolescence of anxiety, excessive alcohol consumption, and later, in the wake of her disintegrated marriage, awkward sex. Tilly’s consistency, albeit little more than a consistent indifference to everyone and everything, stands in contrast with the volatility of her control-freak mother and subverts the expected hierarchy between parent and child.
Threatened with losing her job and living, it seems, in a stifling environment in which communication with either daughter or husband is scarce, Hilary’s breakdown is symptomatic of a feeling of loss and loneliness when confronted with age and the imminent prospect of sagging skin, or as Tilly illustratively terms it, ‘vagina neck’.
Despite an uncertain start, and some inconsistencies between the cast members, several really engaging moments of humour propel the first act forwards in the promise of more.
Unfortunately it’s a promise that is on the whole unfulfilled. The audience is left feeling as disconnected from the action as Tilly is from her mother’s attempts at bonding. The problem is perhaps the fact that there is no clear climax to the action, or at least, that the most climactic event (a gunshot) seems premature and lacking a convincing emotional basis.
Lara McIvor finds a compellingly tremulous balance between strength and vulnerability in her portrayal of Hilary and succeeds in the difficult task of embodying a much older role. Clara Davies’ Tilly seems effortless yet the two performances seem somewhat at odds with one another and the many nuances of the relationship are disappointingly left unearthed.
Without a doubt the standout performance is Sammy Glover’s Frances – Hilary’s uninhibitedly flirtatious friend who channels Samantha Jones and Edina Monsoon in equal measure; it was only a shame that there wasn’t more of her.
Jumpy is a play about the fragility of relationships commandeered by selfish instinct and a universal craving for connection, a recognition of which would perhaps have provided the play with the sense of unity that it needed to hold its best moments of comedy and pathos together.
