Review: THE MEETING, Chichester Festival Theatre

Charlotte Jones's new play for nearly a decade, The Meeting, is an emotional twister that evokes concerns about female empowerment, treatment of those who are different, and the limitations of religious teachings.

The play opens on a community in rural Sussex, circa 1805, taking part in a Quaker meeting - a ceremony of silent prayer.

The drama focuses on the struggling Rachel (Lydia Leonard) and her deaf mother, Alice (Jean St Claire) - the latter has converted to the Quaker faith through Rachel's marriage to stonemason Adam (Gerald Kyd).

Rachel is a mother with only dead children - three stillborn sons named Nathaniel - and suffers the pressure of being both vocal in a typically pacifist community, and voice for her mother - a burden she has struggled with since childhood.

The plot centres around language and communication. Adam struggles to read and so desires an apprentice; his wife, wracked with grief, doesn't wish to take in a young boy who is not her son, but stumbles upon a deserter from the militia who calls himself Nathaniel (Laurie Davidson) and appeals to the Rachel's sentimentalities - appearing as if sent from God.

Difficulties soon arise when jealousy and passion take over the peaceful community. We see the romantic and psychological trouble take hold with a simple love triangle quickly expanding, with hidden anger appearing through and quickly dominating the storyline.

Natalie Abrahami's beautifully judged, understated production suggests the ritualised, plain living of the Quakers. Vicki Mortimer's evocative design features a stone disc on the stage where the group gather in a circle for their meetings on wooden chairs, which are afterwards hung on hooks to the metal ring-like structure that descends from above.

The stage appears plain, replicating the importance of the stone that appears in much of the play's iconography, though the small alcoves built in to remove and replace props reveal the thinly veiled complexities of this community of 'friends'.

Leonard takes this play to its peak with a sensitive yet strong portrayal of a multifaceted woman in this community, achieving some equality but still struggling to be heard on her own merit and not just as an interpreter - something familiar to so many women of our time.

She's easily matched by the youthful exuberance of Davidson as Nathaniel's passionate deserter; straight out of drama school, this is an actor to watch. Ultimately, it is the quiet undertone of the necessity of communication through the complexity of different language that storms the mind, with St Claire's quiet power drawing focus in every scene and eventually driving the play to its completion.

The Meeting is a strong return for Charlotte Jones and also marks a stark change in her repertoire. A well-trained cast and simple execution result in a production which captures the imagination of the audience and transports this message of this 19th-century tale into the 21st, allowing us to contemplate how different it really is.

Drama with a heart, and strong female leads: this play is a sure success.

The Meeting at Chichester Festival Theatre until 13 August

Picture credit: Helen Maybanks

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