I Don't Live Here Anymore

Emma is slowly being drowned by dreams, apparently. The poor girl is clearly in a rather unenviable spot of bother: being crushed under the sheer weight of the clumsy metaphorical toss that she can’t help but spout. It’s a painful death for an audience to watch, as hidden beneath the pretentious outer layer of I Don’t Live Here Anymore is actually a gently entertaining play performed by a group of admirably talented young actors.

Winner of Student Theatre at Glasgow (STaG)’s New Writing Festival competition, I Don’t Live Here Anymore is a new play written and directed by Philippa Mannion. At its heart, it’s an intriguing examination of love and loss, using a non-linear narrative to chart the breakdown of a relationship as one of its participants fades away. Even after hanging on every line of well-delivered dialogue, however, it is never clear exactly why the character is dying, nor why she is experiencing the extended hallucinations that punctuate the script. It feels as if the flowery babbling she indulges in is only there to give the play the pretence of maturity.

In actual fact, this subtlety-free subtext only serves to distract from some truly wonderful moments. The play features three unnamed characters who come to represent a mix of narrator and conscience, and it is in these playful interludes that the vast majority of the play’s accomplished dialogue resides. It’s just a terrible shame that the humour and energy of these moments is almost completely drowned by the heavy-handedness of the more abstract—and deeply irritating—attempts at philosophising.