Hold On Let Go (CAST Doncaster)

• Directed by Annie Rigby, written by Luca Rutherford, Performed by Luca Rutherford and Alex Elliot 16/06/22

A quietly beautiful comment on how we forget

Unfolding Theatre brought a charming show to Cast with Hold on Let Go. It’s a take on how people remember differently, based on how they see the life they’ve lived.

We were greeted on arrival into the second space with citrus squash and the smell of baking bread. I came with my grandma and these two things remind me of her kitchen on a Sunday- which set me up perfectly for the show’s premise.

Luca and Alex flitted through us audience members, starting up conversation about how we used to dance, or how we do dance now. It stirred up laughter, nostalgia and warmth- a perfect and personal beginning.

Alex is 62 and Luca is 31 and they’re in different stages of life, different stages of enthusiasm and different stages of remembering. Luca is an agile young woman kitted in gym wear and climbing up and around their set like it’s a playground frame. Alex is in shirt and chinos, dressed for reflection not moving through.

Luca is preoccupied by the present, and worried existentially about how she must look when life passes her accidentally- she forgets. Alex has realised he won’t remember and inside savours what he can, as Luca draws out stories of his Catalonian mother Margarita from him.

This philosophical chit chat is held down by Alex’s mission to show us how to bake the perfect sourdough. He kneads the dough as Luca kneads his brain, bursting bubbles of forgetfulness and bonding memory and flour.

The table in the centre, the kitchen surface, is moved and flipped around, turned upside down and lifted as Luca climbs it, trying to reach a summit- the point where she remembers. Alex only climbs it halfway up; their desire to reach remembering are of different force.

The best parts of this production are the stories, the home-truths and scraps of heartfelt memory that the performers hold. It ties together the atmosphere the audience exist in, and the homely set. The cupboards on stage are lined with tins- to Alex these tins are his late mother’s precious tinned food that she would save for guests, but never use. They are symbols of the life he lived. To Luca, these tins are what orbit her when she floats in a black hole when she can’t remember something in conversation- they are abstracted. To Alex, they show what he remembers and to Luca they show what she forgets. 

Her moments of existentialism are shown onstage by her climbing into or up the table under a single spotlight and talking into a microphone. Her voice surrounds us and the aesthetic is effective, but the touching moments are lost in the writing’s attempt at philosophical wonder. It is a performance that is at its strongest when grounded.

The play finishes with us all sharing the warm (actually very hot) bread Alex has baked us in his previous show. It is a lovely moment in a lovely play. It is one that reminds us that it is okay to forget detail, but important to remember how we felt, and I will remember feeling a calm happiness when watching this performance at Cast.