7 – 9 June
What does it mean to be a Mother?
David Martin’s one woman play is, more than anything, a mother’s confession. Molly Thompson is too hot, tired and flustered. She is like most women at some point in their lives, suffering from being shackled to a radiator and experiencing the strange fog that confuses her brain at the cruel hand of the menopause. The Alma Tavern Theatre gave its audience the same sensations our protagonist was experiencing. This intimate space on a warm June evening made us sympathise with her hot flushes and helped us understand her constricted life at the hands of her husband.
Once Molly steps through the looking glass she is back to 1984, re-living her life through her record collection. Beginning with Lulu’s Boom Bang a Bang and wearing a ‘Choose Life’ t-shirt we watch Molly grow up from the point of view of her present, middle-aged and menopausal self. The use of this woman’s personal music collection as a device to indicate the passage of decades was seamless and subtle. For audience members of the same age as Molly, you are confronted with a familiar embarrassment and nostalgia, thanks to Emma Smart’s ability to transform herself from a polyester-clad teenager to an Oasis, Parka-Monkey twenty-something.
Molly tells of her first encounter with Frank Thompson, when she is sixteen and Frank eleven years her senior. She then dives headlong into her first romantic relationship and from here on Molly’s life moves by fast and certainly becomes domesticated. David Martin has brought to the stage a story that many will be familiar with, packed with references to and reflections of the past forty years plus the confessions of a woman defined by her relationship to her children. Mother is a hilarious, nostalgic and harrowing story of motherhood that will spark sympathy for a parent whose children are growing up and moving out. Although Mother is written to please its audience, through our recognition of pieces of Molly in our own lives and childhood the play transforms into a deeply personal experience that will shock and unsettle, causing you to re-examine the role we believe we are familiar with – that of a Mother.
And like Molly, if you find yourself in a permanent state of hot flushes, then I suggest you bring a fan.
★★★★☆ Scarlett Loveless, 8 June 2023
Photo credit: Softsod Productions
