Patience
Colin Shearman, The Stage

Photo: Tristram Kenton

If you lost everything tomorrow, could you cope? This UK debut from Canadian writer Jason Sherman may seem a trifle long and complicated but it hammers home this question with such ferocity that it is impossible to watch without questioning your priorities.

Businessman Reuben (Geoffrey Towers) loses his job, wife and home in one day and then learns his younger brother is dying. As the play moves backwards and forwards in time to examine his past mistakes and their consequences - particularly a fling with an ex-girlfriend (Sandy Walsh) - he is soon wondering whether he is the author of his own misfortunes.

But older brother Phil, played by Chris Andrew Mellon, a physics lecturer who’s left his wife for a 19-year-old student and is big on chaos theory, believes life is completely random. Certainly, chance plays a part in Reuben’s story too - cruelly killing someone as they fly to Hollywood to follow their dreams yet offering his ex-wife an unexpected opportunity for happiness.

Barnard’s confident, well-paced direction ensures a witty, engrossing debate between these two points of view and Towers makes the unlikeable Reuben as sympathetic as possible. Russell Bentley also impresses as a wise-cracking Rabbi and a scene in which his ex-wife Donna, played by Mufrida Hayes, berates his selfishness is also powerful.

However, as Reuben’s problems eventually force him to examine his behaviour, this modern take on the story of Job suggests that suffering which leads to greater self-knowledge is a blessing in disguise.

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