Our Mothers’ Daughters
4
Reviewer's Rating
I’d travel quite a distance to see a Hanna Berrigan play, though this one is on my door-step. Berrigan is one of the few directors to have the delicacy of touch to direct our greatest living (as well as one of our all time great) playwrights, Howard Barker. She also directs at Rose Bruford College and has, in her time, directed a number of comedy acts. This play, ‘Our Mothers’ Daughters’, at the Redbridge Drama Centre, is performed by some of her former students (Sarah Tara Ray is both the writer and plays one of the leads, Billy). It is a coming of age story, a love story about friendship,. It is a dark comedy and it is very very funny.
When the lights go on, the set puts me off. A plump cheap couch, with a child’s size comforter blanket on its back. And to the side of this, a 70s type floor lamp with the requisite ugly lampshade. And dotted across the stage, easel stands. The actors appear, stand at the back, and shimmy-shammy, gently. Even if the girls are renting, you’d expect Generation Z, given their love of Instagram, to be more savvy with decor than this. Maybe it’s ironic? Then Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ plays and there’s raucous dancing. I think, ‘Oh no, I’m not going to like this.’
The story centres around three friends, two of whom are going through life-changing events, and the third, who feels lost and left out. Kat (Natasha Mula) announces she’s just got engaged. We later learn that her laser focused dream, since a child, was to get married. The Artist (Abbey Grace Orchard) announces that she’s not pining for her ex, Adam, but rather, that she has strong feelings for a woman she’s just met, Sophie (Megan Rose Kennedy). We learn that the Artist has an exhibition coming up – small, and in a collective, but nevertheless, a public viewing. And then, cutting across and cutting to shreds these hope-filled future events, is the discovery that she’s pregnant. It’s an unwanted pregnancy.
Billy and Kat make an odd couple. Billy is spiky, mouthy, but she is also unable to manage herself; this, Kat does for her. That Natasha Mula, playing Kat, is dressed in a tight fitting sleeveless work dress, raised to her thighs and the fact that she has muscled bare arms and legs, is a nice touch. It challenges the soapy stereotype of a bride-fixated young woman, as do her informed debates with Billy about feminism and the Roe-Wade amendment to abortion rights in America.
Into the circle of three, comes the would be lesbian lover, Sophie; the Artist’s golden child sister, Emma, who does everything by the book, and the mother. Sophie and Emma each have a heads on with the Artist. In the first instance, about straight women kissing lesbians to get male attention and in the second instance, about the right to abort. The mother, when she appears in the second half, is a hearth figure, the one person the Artists seeks solace and support from. I didn’t like that she came on stage carrying laundry and wearing a pinny. It felt too arch-domestic and anyhow, who wears a pinny to iron?
The dynamic between the characters is sharply drawn. There is a certain sentimentality in the down-beat moments but the writer is only twenty-six, for Godsake. She is a fine writer and will become more honed with time. The funny lines are very funny and had the audience cracking up again and again. The timing, placing and delivery of the jokes is spot on.
Billy has one of the funniest set pieces – about a cheese grater. And the Artist has several of the most poignant set pieces in the play.
The play surprised me, for its cleverness and its warmth. It is superbly acted and directed and deserves a wider audience and a much much longer run.
Writer: Sarah Tara Ray
Director: Hanna Berrigan
Sound design: Ellen Pallant
Assistant director: Nancy Hannigan
Cast includes: Abbey Grace Orchard, Sarah Tara Ray, Natasha Mula, Megan Rose Kennedy, Ellen Pallant, Jessica Radcliffe
Runs until 3rd March