It’s Dark Outside

It’s Dark Outside presents an allegory of the experience of permanent memory loss, particularly in the formation of new memories, as commonly occurs in dementia.  Three writer–actors create an almost surreal, often surprising, insight into such an experience, showing us something of the experience of the one directly affected.

The performance managed to convey that very well.  It conveyed also the loss of direction that such memory loss engenders; the allegory, which contained no plot as such, communicated as a sequence of impressions.  The mix of styles in which the sequence proceeded was perhaps its most interesting aspect, with seamless juxtaposition of physical movement upon a projected landscape and the use of the same projection screen to silhouette a character and even a street scene.

The production does little to address other aspects of dementia that make themselves felt very strongly: the difficulty that a person without continuity of memory has in maintaining meaningful relationships; the staggering grief that those who love him feel at the daily death of his relationship with them and his gradual disappearance; the virtual impossibility of his defending himself from abuse of his memory loss by those best placed to abuse him, such as his own children.  It is nevertheless a sympathetic portrayal of the tragedy of implacable mental deterioration due to dementia.

John P. Harvey

Image: Arielle Gray, in It's Dark Outside.  Photo: Richard Jefferson.