Bright Places offers a refreshing and satirical take on what it’s like to live with multiple sclerosis (MS) from the age of twenty-three. The show is autobiographical, written by Rae Mainwaring and acted out by three actresses, who all play Rae. Whilst significant elements of Mainwaring’s storytelling felt like she was trying to explain her disease rather than show it through acting, the play found equal moments of relief, when the pain, frustration and anger of her chronic health condition came across powerfully and made a noticeable impact on the audience.
In an interview with Northcott Student Ambassadors Lily Howe, Ophelia Mills and Joshua Shane Watts, Mainwaring explains that “Bright Places is as much a coming-of-age story as it is about a chronic illness.” She tells her own story, of being a young woman at the start of her career in the arts. She had a job in a theatre costume department. In her spare time, she loved to go out with friends, have a good time and dance. During these going out scenes, the stage turned into an underground drum and bass club. It’s here she first starts noticing her symptoms: her legs go numb, her limbs start tingling, and she falls over several times.
Mainwaring explains that “Bright Places is as much a coming-of-age story as it is about a chronic illness.”
A few days later she’s lying in an MRI tube, getting a scan. This to me this was one of the most unsettling scenes. Bright lights project static onto the actress’ face and a deafening clicking sound imitates the machine. Rae seems utterly terrified and detached from her own body. After the scan, she can’t get over the fact that she can see inside of her own head as it “feels like [she’s] glimpsing her own autopsy.” On the scan, the doctor explains to her that the white patches in her brain – the “Bright Places” – are her MS attacking healthy brain cells. She has an autoimmune disease, they explain to her, but she hardly registers.
The rest of the play is a brutal representation of how the disease not only affects Rae’s life but changes it forever. But most of the time, the show doesn’t give in to its grief: the characters are bathed in glitter and wear neon costumes; humour is often used as a coping mechanism. For instance, in a scene explaining her invisible symptoms, a rock band is excitedly introduced to the stage with “‘Tingly Fingers’ on keys and ‘Heart Palpitations’ on drums!” Whilst comedic elements sought to provide entertainment factor, the consequence was that the scenes that reached the cusp of emotional rawness were downplayed in favour of cheesy song-and-dance sequences. As a result, a connection between the audience and Rae (be it Rae No. 1, 2, or 3) was never established.
The rest of the play is a brutal representation of how the disease not only affects Rae’s life but changes it forever.
In addition, Mainwaring gives an overview of the difficulties her disease forces her to confront. Rae explains how she feels guilty about sitting in the disabled seat on the bus as her symptoms aren’t visible to others. She talks about the guilt of wanting children but potentially not being able to care for them. There are scenes relating to the unsolicited advice she gets from strangers every day. She talks about the fear of cancelling plans with friends in case they don’t invite her along again. She explains her tiredness, which often sounds as a lame excuse to blow people off but is, in reality, almost paralysing when it comes over her. And she talks about feelings of loneliness; she’s the youngest member of any support group and can’t help but feel like she “isn’t an inspiring sick person.”
Yet dialogue is wasted on minor and unformed characters in an effort to squeeze out further comedic cliches. These characters are never revisited and quickly forgotten. It would have been more effective to see the effect of Rae’s illness on her relationship with her parents since, for example, she was forced to move back into her childhood bedroom in order to better manage the disease.
Her “Bright Places” get a second layer of significance in the show’s ending, when all three Raes go over the things that make life worth living. A slightly cliché sequence follows, in which rainbows, morning dew, fireworks and cotton candy skies are celebrated as the “Bright Places” she hides inside of. But such sickly-sweet and generic examples are a disappointment: Rae’s character gets lost amongst the glitter, confetti and jazz hands.
But such sickly-sweet and generic examples are a disappointment: Rae’s character gets lost amongst the glitter, confetti and jazz hands.
Mainwaring explains that there were few representations of MS stories she could properly relate to, often finding them too sad and death-related. “I wanted to make a show that was raw and honest, asked difficult questions but importantly was funny and was hopeful.” And this she succeeds in. The show was new and original.
Whilst the play’s story soared, the storytelling fell flat. The exposition felt stunted as all three Raes overtly explained that they were all playing Rae- “Rae who wrote this play”- whilst breaking the fourth wall. This over-explanation became a reoccurring issue throughout the whole piece, as simple scenes, despite having three actresses at the writer’s disposal, were explained rather than acted out. The show was not a monologue, although it often came across as one. Every emotional scene was unpicked and spoon-fed to make sure the audience knew exactly what each person was feeling. In this way, the suitability of the target audience became unclear. Rather than the intended adult audience, perhaps a younger audience would be better suited to the over-simplified storytelling and musical-theatre-esque narrative technique (in this case, the profanities in the script would need revising).
So mixed feelings about Bright Places, which could have used a few more proof readings and alterations to truly make the story come alive. But Mainwaring encapsulates my overall impression herself, as she says that “ultimately, it’s a really entertaining play and love letter to anyone who has found that life has thrown them a curve ball.”
