Where to begin with this one? A family in need of therapy; trying to address the way they raised their son decide to hire a theatre and perform a play about their lives while streaming the performance live onto the web in the hopes their absent son might watch it. Sound familiar? No. Nor to me, I've never seen anything like it. And that absurdist element runs all the way through this piece.
The performance space is large, capable of holding probably just short of 200. On the day I attended there are about 10 in, but weirdly that helped, matching and reflecting the anarchic nature of this family and weirdness of their self healing. I wouldn't expect large numbers for a therapy session, which is what this is. A smaller space wouldn't have created that atmosphere but it would be interesting to experience a more intimate performance.
The early stages of the piece are difficult to follow and the opening monologue by the mother is way too long for any actress to sustain an audience's engagement, especially when playing a chaotic and confused mind as well as Deborah Arnott does. For such a chronic and dysfunctional family they made a beautiful set on which to perform and this sharply contrasts with the shambolic nature of everything else this family apparently does.
A talking dog, a conservative and clearly confused husband, a slightly barmy wife and her even barmier mother make up the cast. They all play well together, the characters whole and credible. However, the segues this group have to navigate between clarity and the wild and illogical sometimes makes it confusing.
The play looks at some interesting issues; how much have we lost of our own identities when we surround our selves by technology? How are our lives affected by conforming to unspoken norms? How much do we really know one another?
The problem for me was the exposition or answers were lost in a melange of bizarreness and ridiculousness resulting in an absence of clarity. It was the acting and presentation of these people (and dog) and their believability in the midst of all this unbelievability that pulled me through this piece. But the play its self, well it may have lost something in translation despite the best efforts of Penny Black who undertook the English Adaptation from the original Finnish.
Runs until the 25 August, 14:40.
Suitability 14+