"Having the Last Word". Burton Taylor Studio.

There are moments in Jessica Tabraham’s new play Having the Last Word when the characters open their hearts to each other, albeit briefly, to say what they feel, not what they ought to say. At these points it opens its heart to the audience too, and it is touching, truthful and valedictory.

Mary (Wren Talbot-Ponsonby) is a dying woman in a hospice. Her partner Jo (Esme Rhodes) understands that Mary, in her final days, needs to talk to people from her past, and so she conjures them up for her as visitors: the man who used to run the corner shop, a primary school teacher, her ex-husband, an old friend. Are they truly coming to see her, or are they figments of a shared imagination? Possibly somewhere between the two. Her ex-husband seems real enough, still full of recrimination and self-pity even as the mother of his son sits on her death-bed. Other guests seem more like ghosts of weddings past.

The sequence of visits is staid, controlled, conversational. These are not occasions for stunning revelations or long-pent-up confessions, but for quiet regret and humble requests. When Mary finally bursts out that she wants to ‘mark her territory like a dog’ on Jo’s body, it comes as a shock. But it’s also a moment of muscularity in an otherwise hushed production. Tabraham weaves Mary’s life back to its significant turning point, the night she met Jo, and the tiny skeins of plot in this chamber-piece meet as the play ends.

But it could have been so much more.

As the programme makes clear, this sets out to be a play that ‘explores just how much you can do with two-person dialogue’. That exploration doesn’t stray too far from base camp. The dialogue is for the most part muted, undemonstrative and just too reasonable. Given that there is almost nothing to reveal in the way of plot, an awful lot hangs on the appeal, style and charisma of the words themselves. But they do not stand up, loud and proud, and force the audience to take note. Instead, it feels almost as though the script is shying away from being too noticeable. It’s a shame. There’s no need for imposter syndrome here. Tabraham clearly has talent as a dramatist, but this play has the aura of someone who doesn’t quite have the confidence to get out of their comfort zone, take some risks, and let themselves go. The meetings with more peripheral characters such as the doctor, the old lady from next door and the corner shop man seem to verge on the irrelevant since they do not play into the pivotal meeting in the past. If instead they felt like mini plays in their own right, with character, passion and more of a verbal swagger, they would lift the play immeasurably.

In short, there is a lot more that you can do with two-person dialogue, and future plays from Tabraham may explore that in more revealing depth. Peter Todd’s new play last year, Skin, also followed a woman dying of cancer, and the desperation and fear she felt was imprinted on the audience as if with a branding iron. Having the Last Word felt more like being stroked with a delicate feather.

Having said that, the closing scene, in which Mary and Jo’s first meeting is re-enacted, brings a lump to the throat, and their final embrace (which is also their first) speaks volumes. The last words in Having the Last Word are, ironically, silent, and that produces a moment of true theatrical eloquence.