2.22: A Ghost Story
Do you believe in ghosts? Why? Why not? Can you prove they exist? Can you prove they don’t?
What exactly happens at 2.22am?
These are the questions that we explore in 2.22: A Ghost Story. Danny Robins’ play asks audiences to consider if the supernatural is truly real or not, or do we just turn to ghost stories when something happens that we can’t explain? Maybe we don’t want to explain. Maybe blaming a ghost is easier.
New parents, Jenny and Sam (Sammy), are at odds because Jenny has been waking up for four nights in a row to unsettling feelings, strange noises, and eerie energy in her baby girl’s room at 2.22am. Sam was away on business so he hasn’t experienced the strange events yet, nor does he believe in them because he is the sceptic of the play.
The evening is already tense, but things go from bad to worse when Sam’s old friend from college Lauren (Loz) arrives for dinner with her new boyfriend Ben. Sam and Lauren are the scientifically minded pair, while Jenny and Ben are more open to believing that perhaps spirits do join us. They have a sense of faith. Maybe those who have passed do try to make some form of connection from an afterlife somewhere.
The entire play is set over one evening. Jenny, an exhausted new mother who is sick and tired of her husband not taking her very real fears seriously, makes the group promise to sit up with her until 2.22 in the morning. Her plan is to prove that strange things happen at this time, things that appear to be targeting her baby. As the night plays out, egos are bruised, fights are picked, and tension builds and builds.
I enjoyed the play. It is rare that I see something that I don’t know anything about. Usually I know the play already or I have some ideas about the plot, but I went to see this one blind. I felt it was well-written. I really enjoyed the conversations about tearing down houses and putting up “modern Ikea kitchens.” Places have layers and it is important to think about the history that people and places leave behind. Even if we don’t believe in ghosts, when people are alive in our memories, doesn’t that mean they’re still with us?
The thriller/tension builds very well as there were several strange occurrences that felt completely unexplainable. Such as who drowned the teddy bear with white spirits? How did it get in the bathroom? Is Jenny’s exhaustion causing her to imagine things? Is she having severe anxiety because she is a new mother, determined to protect her child? Or is there something more sinister in the house?
The play explores people too. What we do, why we do it, how do we come to believe what we believe? How and why do we make certain choices? What if we made different ones?
Sam and Lauren are quite clearly more than just old college friends. Ones who never dated, but maybe feel they should have. None of her boyfriends ever match up to him, and he never likes anyone she dates, the two seem to be always on the same wavelength until Lauren is more open to the idea of ghosts.
In my opinion, Lauren and Sam are the most complex characters in the play, and Colin O’Donoghue and Laura Whitmore are solidly intense and brilliant in the roles. Lauren works in mental health, and she’s clearly well-educated, immaculately dressed, but she feels as though she is missing out in certain regards. She’s missed out on one thing, on one person she wanted the most. She’s funny, cheeky, but also clearly struggling with heavier feelings and as the play goes on, her arc is highly engaging.
Sam is a classic sceptic. Always rolling his eyes, always ready to pick apart the amazing and unbelievable. He gets a kick out of explaining things to people. He’s very unlikable.
If there was one aspect of this script that I didn’t love, it’s that this play is written by someone who clearly believes in ghosts and enjoys ghost stories, so Sam is portrayed as a cynical, asshole, sceptic. It is typical in these kinds of stories to have the sceptic be always ready to reel off a bunch of facts in a gotcha fashion.
The issue I found was that Sam is unlikable for other reasons, he’s an asshole in many ways, but he’s not an asshole because he’s a sceptic, he’s actually just a sceptical asshole. The difference is important. I don’t dislike Sam because he refuses to believe in ghosts, I dislike Sam because he’s condescending, arrogant, and he talks down to his wife (and everyone else) constantly, while getting far too close for comfort with Lauren. The biggest issue is that he cannot seem to give his wife any sort of sensitivity. Even if he does not believe in anything supernatural at all, he cannot even acknowledge that the fear his wife feels is very real. Instead of insisting the whole thing is ridiculous, it would have meant a lot if he could have just said “Clearly something is scaring you, and we’ll get through it together.”
I enjoyed the play and I loved the intense dynamics of the four main characters, but I would have loved to see a touch more nuance with this one aspect of Sam’s character. I don’t think his role as the sceptic would’ve been negatively impacted or less compelling if he’d have been a touch more willing to listen. His arguments for logic, reason, and science could have remained the same.
Ben’s character is kind of an unsung hero in act two in my opinion. He’s the new boyfriend, the newcomer to the group, and he’s a bit rough around the edges, but his convictions in act two are very powerful. Jenny also has her finest moment towards the end of act two in my opinion, and while I will not be divulging any spoilers, I will say that Shona McGarty moved me to tears with one of her final pieces of dialogue.
Colin O’Donoghue (Sam), Laura Whitmore (Lauren), Shona McGarty (Jenny), and Jay McGuiness (Ben), were absolutely fantastic. It is really impressive when casts are so small because being onstage for nearly the entire play is no small feat and these four characters are all present, nearly always. Sometimes two go off while another two chat for a while, but predominantly, these core four are giving passionate performances the entire time, and the subject isn’t exactly light. So, bravo and congratulations to the cast, and to the crew.
It is a play that I’d highly recommend, and one that I would see again and watch differently now that I know how it ends. Are ghosts real? You’ll have to see the play to find out.
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Do you believe in ghosts?
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