A premiere of a new musical? The prospect of two people searching for a partner on a website? All this interested me. Then I discovered that three actors interchanged the roles, sometimes it was a man and a woman and sometimes two women and I was hooked.

By Angie Millard

A few years ago I saw Constellations in London. This used different castings of the same script. In that case, it was age, race and gender which decided the outcome and I was sorry that I couldn’t see all the different versions. At York Theatre Royal, they are offering the chance to see three versions and I am tempted to return. The show is 80 minutes of intense dissection and representation of a growing relationship.

Last night I saw Nuno Queimado as May and Rumi Sutton as Fly. It is a different type of musical and the writer/composer, Gus Gowland has achieved a character signature by using different rhythms for their music. Gowland says in his programme notes that he wants the audience to play their part and he describes the show as a conversation between them and the performers. The staging is a mixture of time trips beginning with the end of their relationship and travelling dizzily through the two years when they first speak to one another online and finally meet. 

Queimado plays a confused and insecure person who gives himself too soon and too fully, but he is flawed by his suspicion of Fly and his misunderstanding of her intentions. Rumi Sutton presents a free spirit unwilling to think of the past, willing to love and lose. Clearly, their relationship is doomed. Queimado loves jigsaws and in a beautiful theatrical metaphor he throws the pieces from the gantry to cover her saying that she has mistaken sky for sea. The only thing they try to do together is a failure.

The set designed by Tk Hay is a hotel room surrounded by flights of stairs which the director, Tania Azevedo, uses to brilliant effect. A centrally placed bed dominates the stage and inhabits their growing relationship like the proverbial elephant in the room. Time is signified by sound and physical spasms which represent the fast forward motion of a recorder.

This is a clever musical play and a fascinating project. The moving number Running on Empty and the use of songs like Version of Me give it cohesion and help us to share this representation of our own experiences and maybe understand a little more the intricacies of relationships, in all aspects of our lives.

Mayflies is being performed at York Theatre Royal until 13 May 2023.

Cast

May: Nuno Queimado 

Fly: Rumi Sutton

Fly: Emma Thornett

Director: Tania Azevedo

Musical Director: Joseph Church

Designer: Tk Hay

Lighting Designer: David Howe

Sound designer: Chris Whybrow