‘February Story’ by Harry Threapleton tells the story of a student dealing with loss, insecurity, masculinity and the pressures of student life in the ‘God-forsaken month’ of February. Life is dreary, cold, stressful and lonely, and the only hope lies in the mysterious ‘fate-cubes’ which reveal inklings of the truth and what is to come, yet what Patrick can control in a spiral of disaster after disaster is frustratingly limited, and we are quickly surprised by a series of unexpected twists.
The play opens in an eerie preset which appears before the house lights and music have faded, immediately drawing the audience into a tense image of Patrick (played by Orlin Todorov) tossing and turning while time ticks away above him, counting up to the beginning of February. Meanwhile, mysterious masked figures watch him in unison, evoking an impression that fate is watching from the very beginning. Co-directors Joanna Bergmann and Mariella Locke, assisted by Harriet Miller do an excellent job at creating an uneasy atmosphere here and grasping the audience’s attention and curiosity. There is a real sense throughout that we as an audience are inside the mind of Patrick, created by breaks from the fourth wall and metatheatrical freeze-frames where Patrick pauses the action and speaks to us directly. Todorov pulls this off excellently, having the audience in the palm of his hand with sharp humour, facial expressions and comedic timing that contrasts tense and intimate moments. This is accentuated by effective lighting switches executed by production manager Hamish Campbell, assisted by India Jubb, which give a sense of switching the action on and off and self-consciously, incrementally telling the story.
The play, throughout, is conscious of time passing, highlighted by the huge calendar which is constantly present down-stage-left, thanks to stage manager Emma Renton. This set is simple but effective, with a plain white curtain in the back which is coloured kaleidoscopically by lighting choices. It spans the month of February, cyclically flipping from January to February in the opening scene, and ending with the flip to March, thus whilst the play is literally a ‘February Story’, there is also a feeling of the monotony and repetition of life, but also the new month as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf and embrace life for what it is. A nice touch is the transitions between days, where a cast member ticks off the day just passed while a poetically written quote appears projected above them, soundtracked by classical music. I have to add that the use of projections throughout the performance are excellently timed and aesthetically produced by Campbell/Jubb, adding another level of detail and providing thought-provoking clues for what is to come.
Projection was also used interestingly to highlight the repeated motif of birds, especially magpies, who act as omens which Patrick is obsessed with. Throughout the production, the number of magpies projected correlates to the intensity of the scene, and they whither away with our sense of reality. This theme is a constant throughout the script, evoking interesting questions of symbolism and their connection to fate and doom, and notably seeming to disappear as our protagonist finally begins to accept his lack of control and stops obsessing over these concepts. A stand-out moment of the show is the genuinely disturbing dream sequence where our protagonists are attacked by a life-sized bird, possible symbolising how Patrick feels like a victim to fate. Thanks to a myriad of lights, intense sound and excellent direction, not to mention the incredible costume design by Libby Simpson, all theatrical elements come together to create an immersive and horrifying moment, providing a huge relief with the realisation that it is not real.
Another interesting element of Threapleton’s script and Bergmann and Locke’s direction is the choice of having several voices such as those of the teachers, Patrick’s parents at some points, as recordings rather than physical actors. Although this wasn’t always done perfectly, with some issues of volume and overlapping dialogue, it provided an interesting element to the story, further closing us in on Patrick’s bubble of school friends and giving the sense that these voices are unimportant and distant in his perception of the world, perhaps reflecting the college student mindset of the world revolving around him and his friends.
The script is additionally structured brilliantly, with the first half catastrophically descending into disaster and chaos, with each fate-cube revelation acting as an omen for another terrible thing to happen that Patrick cannot prevent. Threapleton encapsulates this in the recurring analogy of a tapestry design falling apart. Todorov portrays this unravelling mental state convincingly, showing his increasing frustration and even violence with an edge that had me nervous as an audience member. This is reflected by sound designer Bonnie’s use of a storm soundscape which crescendos into the interval with increasing ferocity, in fact, lighting and sound throughout excellently work together dynamically to reflect Patrick’s moods. Act 2 then opens with unnerving calmness, but a continual sense that ‘it only gets worse from here’ accompanies our gradual realisation that the girl Patrick seeks, Sophia (portrayed wonderfully by Tess Garrett who brings her oblivious yet sensitive popularity to the fore) is actually with the frustratingly sporty, goofy figure of Rafe (acted hilariously but endearingly by Nathan Jarvis). Things just get worse for Patrick, mirrored by the gradually destabilising script and a dislocation of our sense of who is who and what is happening. Although I may argue that some parts of the writing could have accelerated quicker and took time to get going, I wouldn’t want to lose the poetic and metaphorical quality that underlines Threapleton’s writing, which effectively contrasts the morbid and disturbing with light, relatable and silly humour (a personal highlight for me being the cross country scenes – ‘the sport for the sporting outcasts’).
The latter half of act 2 throws off the audience’s concept of reality in unpredictable ways, revealing that Patrick is not who we think he is, but the alter-ego of his seemingly awkward and shy friend, Peter (played perceptively by Katy Smith). Patrick acts as the confident, talkative façade that Peter presents to his friends, the alternate personality he forces himself to have, an expression of the expectations imposed on him and his insecurity about his true self. Who he is is built on insecurity, overthinking and the stresses of his school and home life, materialising in a disconnect between the self he presents to the world and the interior self. Todorov and Smith make excellent contrasting sides of the same person, with Smith portraying his genuine confusion, sadness and lost sense of self heartbreakingly well. The play therefore deals with the difficulty of self expression, especially for young men, and it exposes the reality than we never know what someone is going through beneath the surface, whether it be loss, pressure, or struggling to grapple with who they are. From this point, the play sends the message that the ugly, confusing and imperfect is what makes us who we are, and creating a confident persona that isn’t real only causes more problems; the solution is to embrace who you are, especially the imperfect.
Another unexpected plot twist which adds further nuance to the script is the revelation that the ‘fate-cubes’ are not the mysterious fantastical objects they appeared to be (designed with fantastic attention to detail by Simpson), but are actually part of a psychological experiment created by Els (played endearingly by Eloise Robinson). This additionally distorts everything we know about the plot so far, and exposes the play’s concern with psychology and how we become obsessed with fate and the future, yet all along the events that the cubes ‘predicted’ actually happened out of coincidence or subconscious expectation. This is complicated, however, by the ongoing presence of the masked figures of fate who coordinate the action, making us question to what extent fate is real and to what extend it is a figment of the imagination.
The play ultimately tells the story of someone ‘so wrapped up’ in their own story that they don’t ‘explore the library’ around them, an evocative yet resonant idea that everyone can take something from, even if they aren’t an 18 year old boy. ‘February Story’ brings us into the mind of Peter (or Patrick) yet simultaneously tells us to get out of our own minds and appreciate the world around us for what it is, accepting our lack of control over or security in it.
Image: First Theatre Company