In sharp contrast to Noel Coward’s classic The Vortex in the main house at Chichester, Amy Herzog’s 2011 play at the Minerva Studio opposite is a touching and engaging tale of love, grief and growing old which is beautifully played by the small cast on a glorious setting of ninety-one-year-old Vera’s Manhattan flat led by the delightful Eileen Atkins.
When nineteen-year-old Leo (Sebastian Croft) arrives at his grandmother’s flat unexpectedly in the middle of the night after cycling across America from the west coast to the East, a curious revealing relationship develops. We learn that Vera’s husband died ten years prior and that they were both passionate communists and she has lived alone since staying in contact with her neighbour, Jenny by phone. He is a wayward son who during his epic cycle ride has witnessed the death of his friend Mica in a car accident and responded by continuing the journey alone without contact with his family. She is feeling her age with occasional memory loss, and often “can’t find the words” and a frail frame as she moves unsteadily and quietly around the flat. He is awkward and isolated from friends and family with no money and no clear future. Yet as he stays over the weeks, a strong bond develops between them as we see in episodic scenes their companionship develops and he grows up visibly under her influence.
