Empathy is en vogue, the basis of a new 21st-century Enlightenment, according to Tony Blair’s former adviser Matthew Taylor in a much-discussed new pamphlet. So writer/director Mick Gordon’s latest is timely.
From the man who gave us ‘On Ego’, ‘On Emotion’ and others, ‘Bea’ is effectively ‘On Empathy’. But it’s less engaging than its predecessors – not least because its imaginative central conceit, relating to how heroine Bea’s illness is staged, is fatally unclear.
I spent much of this new three-hander confused about Bea’s condition, which lets her dance on her bed and frolic with carer Ray, but is painful enough that she urges her mum to assist her suicide. My confusion was not conducive to empathy; I didn’t care about the characters’ predicament.
Pippa Nixon and Al Weaver do their best as suffering patient and camp, chatty nurse – but it’s beyond them to redeem a scene in which Bea chats to her mum (Paula Wilcox) while Ray performs oral sex on her beneath the duvet. ‘Maybe Ray’s right – perhaps we are all a little mind-blind,’ says Bea: and that’s as much of an insight into empathy as we get in this ambitious but misfiring new play.