Forest

Forest is a play with grand ambitions. Inspired by writer Georgia Harris’s own struggles with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic attacks, it depicts a girl (Little One) trapped within her own imagination, fleeing from reality and the tomorrow she can’t bear to face. Navigating her way through a surreal forest full of talking animals (or rather, manifestations of her own subconscious), Little One must learn to confront her demons as reality seeps inevitably into the internal world in which she is taking refuge.

It’s an ambitious premise on which to build a play, and the end result is not without merit. There is an endearing, dream-like quality running through the production, and the relatively young cast do well to make themselves heard above some minor technical faults that hinder the opening scenes. The writing itself, meanwhile, demonstrates an intriguing spark of raw creativity marred by an almost adolescent clumsiness. All the moralising and emphasis on self-belief becomes simply too much to chew on after a while. The whole thing is at times so sickly sweet it’s hard to sit through it without developing severe tooth decay.

Comparisons with Alice in Wonderland might be obvious, but they also give some indication of where Forest falls short: there are none of the complexities of the former to be found here. Surrealism thrives on being open to endless interpretation, and in the end, Forest proves just a little bit too heavy-handed to really pack the punch it’s aiming for.