Letters From Max at Hampstead Theatre Review
Photo by Helen Murray
Written by Sarah for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
Please note this performance contains depictions of cancer/illness, death, chemotherapy and cancer treatment. Discussions of dying, hospitals and treatment.
Max Ritvo is a 25 year old student at Yale who joins Sarah Ruhl’s playwriting workshop. They quickly develop a friendship beyond that of student and teacher, based on an intellectual and philosophical transaction of metaphors and poetry. When Max’s childhood cancer returns, their relationship becomes vital, a framework through which they navigate what follows. Letters from Max is a stage adaptation written by Sarah Ruhl based on a book containing the letters between the pair: Ruhl never lost faith that Ritvo’s work would be published. The play gives life to the poetry, the musicality, and a unique intimacy that speaks to a universal need to understand mortality.
Letters From Max premiered in New York in 2023 and now finds a nurturing home in the studio space at Hampstead. Dick Bird's design is deliberate; subtle, intelligent, and encompassing. The stage is set up in traverse and the space suggestive of a university lecture hall, with an intimacy that draws the audience into the bubble of this world. A Perspex screen divides the stage, which signifies a lecture screen and embodies a separateness,self reflection, and frustration, in which the characters try to make sense of their existence by, as Sarah says, “seeing through a glass darkly”.
Max largely communicates through complex metaphors and poetry which distances him from his emotional experience much of the time. In a moment of vulnerability when he plainly says “I’m scared” It feels all the more poignant. He describes his bitterness and rage which feels deeply authentic and relatable. Max, is played by Eric Sirakian who studied with the real Max, this brings a unique dimension to his performance; bringing the character to life in the truest sense. He captures the playfulness, the enthusiasm, the wonder and passion of Max which is charming but makes his visceral suffering as the illness progresses, even more heartbreaking.
Sirine Saba as Sarah, is poised, grounded and reserved. She also acts as narrator which gives insight to her inner world. Her composure drops when Max dies and the tears quietly flow on stage and simultaneously in the auditorium. The play speaks to our core relationships with suffering, loss and death. The performance is underscored and punctuated by a solo cellist, and original music by Laura Moody. The program notes explain that the director, Blanche McKintyre, wanted the cello to be a ‘third voice’ on stage which is subtly achieved and adds another texture to the work.
This play is a meeting of minds and souls and the script feels dense and intense. With so many complex metaphors and poetry, in the second half the text begins to feel declamatory, rhythms repetitive and given too much weight when the words can do the work. It is difficult to criticise given that they are the actual words, posthumously performed, of a young man with so much to admire. He also makes his feelings clear about critics! The producer, Greg Ripley- Duggan describes it as a “complex and properly grown up piece of theatre” and the audience certainly need to show up ready to work.
Letters from Max plays at the Hampstead Theatre until 28 June.
★★★
