21 – 25 June
Oh Mother
Last night’s entertainment (for I know no better description) has been devised, written and directed by Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland, two women who, somewhere between the show’s conception and production, both conceived and produced. Yes, they speak whereof they know. What is there new to be said about motherhood? Well if one takes all the things that are usually left unsaid, quite a lot it seems.
If a narrative is a kind of box, this show is definitely a case of thinking outside the box. The overall impression is of a picture, a jigsaw depicting motherhood with the pieces scattered and picked up randomly for curious and critical examination. It’s a show that wantonly and fearlessly anatomizes the world and experience of motherhood from prospect to ‘happy day’ and with all that follows: the physical, mental and social fallout from motherhood. With the observation for example that prams make you invisible to certain men. And then the realization that ‘family’ for all its importance and biological inevitability is nevertheless a negotiated social construct. We’re in familiar territory, but looking at it from a new perspective.
The piece dashes along apace as if the actors have gleefully raided the cupboard marked ‘theatrical devices’ whilst ransacking the dressing up box. It’s physical and emotional, there’s dance (of a fashion), song, and a dumb show. A panegyric to a dishwasher can be followed by a gushing monologue in the fashion of Beckett’s, Not I (but this is the opposite to a disembodied voice).
Onstage music is supplied by Simone Seales, who is for the most part seated with her cello whilst providing at times a kind of fulcrum for the action. Accompanying a couple of prancing Greek goddesses with some lively Elgar one moment whilst having a sharp and mildly censorious knockabout chat with her own gruff – yet strangely dashing – talking vagina on another. (I kid you not).
The Tobacco Factory Theatre is about to enter a new era (applications for the post of Artistic Director are now in) and we can only hope that whatever mix of work the new appointment decides, from Shakespeare to monologue, the standard will remain, as here, of the highest quality.
Last night’s audience was largely made up of women, but men need not be afraid, they’re not the enemy. Rash Dash have written a love letter of solidarity to mums and families everywhere.
★★★★☆ Graham Wyles
Photo credit: The Other Richard
