By Cal
Link: https://themaclive.com/event/father-the-father
Available until: 17th April
Father the Father tells the story of a woman trying to trace the man who is biologically her father. He knew about her, but she’s never met him. She’s grown up, not knowing what to say about who her dad is. She’s grown up wanting to know who he is. But she’s also angry with him because… where was he?
Ciaran Bagnall’s set is a narrow white rectangle, longways to the audience. An even narrower doorway is upstage. On either side of the stage is foliage. It reminds me of a disused platform at a station. It probably wasn’t intended to be that, but the image seems to suit the play. A disused platform (or a whole disused station) is part of the past. Some are brought back into use again, but most are abandoned forever. If you walk out onto a disused platform, you’re probably not going anywhere, except back the way you came. But very, very occasionally, it might be reopened. The impossible might become possible. And then, anything could happen.
The play is written by Gilly Campbell, based on her own personal experiences. She describes the emotions she experiences so truthfully and so tangibly. It almost hurts to listen, but not to the extent where you’d want to stop listening. Emma Jordan is the director. There are no props because material things don’t matter. It’s all about something which can’t be seen and doesn’t exist but is infinitely special: a relationship between a father and a daughter. Emma positions Gilly’s character in different places on the stairs, in different positions, with different camera angles. These suggest different days, different times, different moods. It’s not a story that takes place in one day. It has been part of the character’s whole life.
In some ways, it’s not like watching a play. It feels too real for that. You certainly can’t judge it as a piece of fiction because these are someone’s real emotions and experiences. But the writing is well-paced and it has the feeling it’s going somewhere and the revelations are made in an interesting and realistic way and I think Gilly has done so well to write something that feels so real, yet which also conforms to what we’d expect from a story.
It’s brought to live with astonishing vividness by Abigail McGibbon. In fact, the performance is so powerful, I assumed Abigail was Gilly. It was so easy to believe that Abigail had lived through every moment of what she described; that she’d felt every emotion. From my point of view, it’s a wonderful performance that does true justice to a very personal story, but it’s not my point of view that matters most. I really hope Gilly feels the same way.
Abigail is the only person who is seen, but we hear Helena Bereen and Emily Bagnall as Mother’s Voice and Young Voice. The decision for them to be just voices really works well because this is all about the main character and her own personal feelings. The voices are like memories in her mind and the atmosphere is not disrupted by people walking on and offstage.
A really powerful, moving and intensely personal play. I
feel very lucky Gilly chose to share her story with us.
No comments:
Post a Comment