Review: A PINEAPPLE, 53Two
After winning the Phoebe Frances Brown Award in 2023, Olivia Mace’s A Pineapple makes its world debut at Manchester’s 53Two. The Phoebe Frances Brown Award is a joint playwright award from Hampstead Theatre and Nottingham Playhouse, named in memory of writer Phoebe France Brown, and was awarded to Olivia Mace for her unique style and imagination.
A Pineapple is set in a dystopian London, decades into the future where a perpetual storm induced by global warming has destroyed much of the world’s population. Survivors of the storm are placed in isolated pods according to their wealth to live with their family, cut off from the rest of society awaiting gradual extinction. The narrative follows the inhabitants of one specific pod – 27 year old Nia, who has lived in isolation since she was a toddler and hardly has any recollection of life before the pod, and her grandmother Connie, who remembers life before the storm and has guided Nia as she has grown older.
The first act depicts Nia and Connie’s close relationship from being alone together in the pod for over twenty years, with the only exception being Nia’s father who took his own life a few years before the story is set. With the pod being all Nia has ever known, Connie has taught her over the years about the way life used to be, including simple things such as letters and junk mail through the post that no longer exist within the world of the story, as well as the impact that men have on women’s lives when not confined to their isolated life using an analogy in an excellently written monologue by Mace. When Connie decides her time is coming to an end and wishes to take the “opt out” method, the pair unexpectedly are visited by government official Charles to handle the application and process, their first interaction with someone outside their family household in decades. In a tonal shift from the first half of the play, the second act sees Nia adapting to life without her grandmother, and exploring more about the past, present and future of the world and her place in it, with insight from Charles and his knowledge of the outside world and a perspective from a different part of society. Mace’s writing cleverly explores topics of social class differences and power imbalances between men and women both in our present day as an audience and the future setting of the narrative.
This small but mighty cast of three consists of Christine Mackie as Connie, Ella Holt as Nia, and Will Huntington as Charles. Each of the three actors are flawless in their delivery of Mace’s words, both through interactions between one another and in their moments alone, each of them stand out in their own right and are captivating to watch. The combination of Mace’s stellar script, excellent direction from 53Two’s Artistic Director Simon Naylor and expert fight and intimacy coordination from Kaitlin Howard support the three actors in creating realistic characters with authenticity at the heart of their relationships with one another to create a naturalistic depiction of this non-naturalistic reality.
Apart from one short section of the play, the action unfolds solely within the garden area of Nia and Connie’s pod. The compact pod is quite a detailed and practical set with an industrial feel created through lighting design by George Miller, set built by Dave Howell, with support from associate designer Kelsea Knox. At first glance, the set seems very stripped back but given that decades have been lived in this space, the physical details of the set add to the personal history of the pod’s inhabitants and give a sense of a dystopian bunker brightened the greenery. The use of lighting, sound and projection wondrously enhances both the set design and the storyline as it adds technological aspects and a Black Mirror-esque sci-fi feel to the world the story is set in.
A dystopian future that feels hauntingly close to a potential reality for our world’s future, A Pineapple is a sensational new production written by Olivia Mace and directed by Simon Naylor featuring a tremendous cast. Every aspect of this production is captivating, thrilling to watch, and well worth booking to see whilst you can.
***** Five stars
Reviewed by: Jess Dalloway
A Pineapple plays at Manchester’s 53Two until 2 May, with further info here.