Erin Conley – On Stage & Screen
What does intimacy look like after two people have been forever changed by a devastating tragedy? The Solid Life of Sugar Water, a play by Jack Thorne (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) currently in its US premiere at Deaf West Theatre in Los Angeles, follows a young couple as they attempt to connect sexually for the first time after the stillbirth of their child.
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Margaret Gray – LA Times
There’s a reason so many love stories end with the wedding. What happens later — the daily intimacy of marriage itself, with its late-night misunderstandings and morning breath — is often less picturesque. In its American premiere by Deaf West Theatre, Jack Thorne’s play “The Solid Life of Sugar Water” skips the photo ops to dive straight into bed with a young married couple, Phil and Alice. Or if not actually in their bed, just above it. The actors playing Phil and Alice stand on the footboard of a vertical prop bed, but scenic designer Sean Fanning’s trompe l’oeil, bird’s-eye-view perspective makes it look like they’re lying flat, while we, hovering somewhere around the ceiling, look down on them.
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Rob Stevens – Haines His Way
British playwright Jack Thorne’s two-hander The Solid Life of Sugar Water is about a couple learning to recover from a horrific experience. It was originally written with one of the characters as deaf. In presenting the American Premiere of the play at the Rosenthal Theater at Inner-City Arts, Deaf West Theatre has made both characters deaf and staged it in their signature performance style combining American Sign Language with spoken English. The result is a very emotional and involving 80 minutes of theatre.
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Now running through October 13