We Had a World | Hampstead Theatre

“I have always wanted to write about our family, I didn’t know if I had your permission,” Joshua (Ryan Kopel) asks his grandmother in the opening lines of Joshua Harmon’s memory play We Had a World. Nana’s (Suzanne Bertish) response is that he should “make it as bitter and vitriolic as possible”.

As the naming of the characters suggests, We Had a World is a semi-fictionalised version of real events in writer Joshua Harmon’s life. Some scenes, including the exchange which opens the piece, and a transcript of his final conversation with his grandmother are lifted (if edited) from real life, while others are invented and altered as necessary. But what is left is a deeply personal account of the lives of three generations of a family: Joshua (Ryan Kopel), his mother Ellen (Anna Francolini) and his grandmother Renee (Suzanne Bertish).

Through its slightly overlong hour and forty-five minute runtime, it explores the relationships between these three characters, and how “three people can look at the same thing and see something entirely different”.

For Joshua, initially, Renee is the devoted Nana who takes him to inappropriate art galleries, movies and theatre performances, with Kopel slipping into a childish register as he tells his mother how he saw Kevin Costner’s butt in Dances with Wolves. But these visits serve a deeper purpose, opening his eyes to his future career as a playwright.

For Ellen, the story is somewhat different, as she continually urges Joshua to skip to “the ugly stuff”. It is this that makes up the bulk of the play, which grapples with how “women who should not have been mothers can make very compelling grandmothers”.

Other characters feature, with each of the actors taking their turn to portray Grandpa, but mostly this is a story of three. Joshua takes the role of narrator and commentator on events, with Kopel skilfully balancing this with his character’s own storyline and providing a nuanced and heartfelt performance.

Francolini’s Ellen is all pent-up rage under a thin veneer of control. She is a lawyer who excels in finding solutions, but who cannot fix the cracks in her own family. Bertish, as Renee, is an enigma, keeping the audience always at arms length from her motives and emotions, while also making us desperate to know us better.

The three are directed skilfully by Josh Seymour, while the intimate staging of Hampstead Theatre Downstairs provides the perfect setting for this deeply personal story. The audience surrounds the stage on three sides, and actors walk on and off from all directions, bringing the audience into what is in many scenes their living room.

Sarah Beaton’s set design is minimalist and multipurpose, choosing to highlight only a few key props: a chair which symbolises Renee’s love affair with Paris and fantasies of high status, Joshua’s box of letters and memories, and, at the back of the stage, a block of ice which steadily melts through the performance.

This appears to be a metaphor for climate change, a metaphor which does run through the piece but is somewhat clumsily executed and does not land as well as it could. This is a shame, as with the deft touch applied to some of the other subject matter, this could provide a slicker and harder-hitting parallel.

This is one of the few areas for improvement in the piece, along with some potential tightening to improve the pacing and slim down the runtime a little. However, We Had a World is a nuanced and compelling memory play which is sure to resonate with audiences.

We Had a World runs at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs until 4 July. For more information and tickets, follow the link here.

★★★★☆ (4*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review | Photography by Marc Brenner