Review: OPEN, VAULT Festival

Christopher Adams and Timothy Allsop draw on their real-life experience to paint a vivid picture of an open couple. They tell their tale aided by the audience, who are called on multiple times to read transcripts from their conversations, Grindr messages, and personal texts from the pair.

Open is, essentially, an honest modern-day love story. Albeit being presented without any frills, it's poetic and sensible. We follow the two men from the moment they meet each other to civil partnership and then marriage.

We see them celebrating, getting harassed, and having sex. The strength of the piece lies in its intimate tones: even though they throw around statistics and studies, Adams and Allsop's aren't trying to be the poster children for a whole community but successfully narrow it down to their own narrative.

Directed by Will Maynard, the play features cardboard boxes to set the scene and clever use of paper puppetry to simulate the external presences in their relationships. They set up rules and principles to live by in their instant affairs, which then they both break as suited.

"Nothing serious threatened our relationship" they repeat in as a mantra. However, they find themselves suddenly tangled in a net of jealousy and discomfort. By powering through it, they learn a lot about each other and themselves, coming off it stronger and with a different approach to life.

Slender writing and an equally tight direction make Open a triumphant look into the (real) private lives of a bold and uncompromising couple.