Review: FOREVERLAND – will science really make us live to be 1000
FOREVERLAND is a bittersweet tale of two loving people who cling to each other, even past the point of it bringing them any real meaning.
Mankind has been challenging nature for aeons. We invented the wheel and eradicated smallpox. And even though life expectancy keeps going up and you can inject the appearance of youth into every orifice, the holy grail of modern medicine has yet to be achieved – eternal life.
FOREVERLAND, the new play from up and coming playwright Emma Hemingford, tries to tackle those ultimate existential questions – if you could live forever, would you? And would limitless time actually give you the perfect life?
While stories about humans being granted immortality usually come in the form of Faustian deals with the Devil or dystopian Sci-fi, Hemingford’s play explores this popular subject matter through a much more grounded lens.
In the just-around-the-corner future, gene therapy has advanced enough that people can opt into a radical treatment program, which will give them a much longer lifespan. So long, in fact, that short of an accident or illness, you can physically remain at your current age for as long as you’d like. Alice and Jay are a young married couple, dreaming not just of a future full of possibilities, but of a perfect loving family. Getting this treatment should be a no-brainer. But from the outset, you’re prickled with the feeling that getting “fixed” isn’t the wondrous miracle it’s made out to be.
The play follows their journey through multiple decades, from fear of the unknown to wild abandon to disillusionment and denial in the face of their new reality. Jay and Alice’s marriage undergoes several transformations, as they change both as individuals and as partners. You witness their emotional deterioration, as they steadfastly force themselves to believe that they have the perfect life. Things become even more complex when the couple welcomes the daughter they’d always dreamed of, Annie, and have to handle never before seen family dynamics. How would you go about parenting your only child in a world where death is, ostensibly, optional?
Through a series of everyday moments, we witness an entire lifetime, as irrevocably shaped by their pasts as it is hopelessly trapped in an ever-coming future. Alice believes that time will allow her to erase the pains of her own upbringing, by giving her the freedom to be the perfect mother. Jay wants to leave his mark on the world, striving for professional success without the soul-crushing pressure or having to sacrifice his personal relationships.
Not surprisingly, after an initial honeymoon period, the novelty of their regenerative lifestyle begins to sour. They find that old complexes and past hurts, buried in the frenzy of a boundless future, starts to poison their present. Gratitude for a new lease on life turns into a neurotic and paranoid need for control. Endless possibilities ferment into stagnation. Passion turns to perversion. Security to despondence.
Alice withdraws more and more from a world where, in the face of eternal life, all she sees is danger around every corner. She starts to derive all her meaning and validation from loving her daughter – a love that snowballs from excessive smothering to toxic control, ultimately causing rifts in the relationship she was sure time would have safeguarded against.
Meanwhile, Jay, having never properly addressed his underlying issues with depression, finds their repetitive existence suffocating, to the point that he becomes a functioning alcoholic, numb to any joys in life, faking his way through every moment that Alice is desperate to treasure. Yet the both of them keep clinging to their permanently youthful lives like it’s the only thing that matters.
Hemingford’s script tackles both the emotional and socioeconomic aspects of living forever. Not surprisingly, getting “fixed” is a costly and exclusive treatment, reserved only for clients deemed financially and mentally suitable enough to qualify. Jay and Alice repeatedly get reminded of the disparity of the gene therapy program, but refuse to ever acknowledge it or proactively change anything, enjoying their privileged circumstances and fearing losing it all in equal measure.
Cast (left to right): Emma McDonald, Christopher York, Una Byrne, Valerie Antwi,
The story culminates as their daughter, now physically the same age as Alice and Jay, is faced with the same choice. Join the program and live forever, or let nature take its course.
It’s fair to say that FOREVERLAND doesn’t broach this subject in any particularly unique way and, while moving, the emotional journeys of the characters involved are quite predictable. The play covers the basics of the science behind the program, aptly reminding the audience that we’re really not that far off from this becoming a reality. But for the rest of the narrative, we don’t really touch base with any of the technical aspects of what Alice and Jay did to themselves, just the emotional fallout.
The comfort of companionship turning into draining codependency, using experiences as distractions and placeholders for real connection, losing interest in the world around you, sex lives becoming unhealthy out of sheer monotony – none of these tropes are particularly novel in any disintegrating marriage. It doesn’t take countless decades for a relationship to go stale – Alice and Jay will have spent close to a century together, so one can not help but wonder what other dark paths such an expanse of time may have led them down. With endless youth and options at their disposal, would they have even stayed faithful to each other? Would anyone?
With Alice’s helicopter parenting and increasing over-protection of their child, coupled with Jay’s conspicuous melancholy, it’s also no surprise that Annie grows up into a listless adult and questions the pros and cons of her privileged upbringing. She rebels against the program’s elitism and discrimination, but again – these have existed in healthcare since forever, and Annie’s anger isn’t triggered by anything we haven’t seen before.
FOREVERLAND takes tried and tested arguments as a given, but puts up a mournful and predictable mirror to the sad reality of human nature. All the time in the world cannot cure generational trauma, especially when the promise of forever takes away any real stakes for trying to emotionally evolve. Does limitless time give you the chance to heal – or absolve you from any responsibility to try? Alice and Jay’s story poignantly highlights the inherent danger in the promise of constancy.
The play’s ultimately tragic ending is definitely one you see coming, but its purpose is not shock and awe. This story isn’t about twists and turns, but an honest and unassuming chronicle of two people – with too much time. They’re not good, they’re not bad, they’re just… people. If you were given the golden ticket to eternal youth, don’t pretend you wouldn’t be swept up by the euphoria and take it without hesitation.
FOREVERLAND definitely asks more questions than it answers, but it’s nevertheless the mark of an affecting play that it stays with you and gets you thinking. Once you go down the rabbit hole of morality and mortality, there’s no end to the “what if”s and “can vs should”s. As they say, youth is wasted on the young. It’s a terrifying thing to embrace the fact that death is what gives life meaning, and this gentle story subversively lets you imprint on these two ordinary people given an extraordinary gift.
Emma McDonald and Christopher York delivered such vulnerable and perfectly understated performances that you get completely wrapped up in their relationship and feel the joys and heartbreaks along with them. Valerie Antwi gave us two energetic and memorable characters, providing some much needed comic relief, which helps break up the growing ennui of the story.
The play had a healthy debut at the Southwark Playhouse Borough, following Hemingford’s previous success with her play Flinch. This production certainly has the chops to be brought to a bigger stage, but actually, the intimacy of the Playhouse really made this story special, more personal. Suffice it to say, Hemingford and the FOREVERLAND cast are fresh new talents to keep on one’s radar.
Location: Southwark Playhouse Borough, 77-85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD
Dates: 2nd – 19th October 2024
Time: 8pm Mon to Sat. 3.30pm matinees on 5th, 8th, 12th, 15th, 19th
Ticket Prices: £10 Pioneers’ Preview (2nd October), £16 Previews, £22 Standard, £18 Concessions
Age Guidance: 14+
Content Warnings: Strong language, euthanasia, mortality, suicide.
Box Office Tickets are available from https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/foreverland
How To Get There: The nearest stations are Borough and Elephant & Castle
