By Louise
Link: https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/sacrament
Available until: 12th May
Trigger Warning: This production contains scenes of sexual violence.
Sacrament is quite a grown-up play in some ways. I hope it wasn’t wrong for me to watch it. I couldn’t find an age rating, but I’m fifteen so I’m old enough to watch some grown-up things. I think this is a really lovely play about finding out who you are.
It’s about a young Irish Catholic woman. At the start of the play, she is in her church and she is preparing to make her confession. It’s a very complicated confession and she feels it’s not just about what’s happening in her life now. It’s about the whole of her life. She goes right back almost as far as she can remember, to being a little girl. She shares memories of learning about herself and her faith. The memories take her right up to university and beyond.
The play is written and performed by Leigh Douglas. It is a very powerful play. There are a lot of very serious subjects, but it isn’t all serious. There are some funny moments too and some very sad moments. Everything is written really well and really clearly. It is easy to understand what is going on and it is so exciting to watch. The director is Fiona Kingwill and she has set it up like a conventional monologue with no props or set. For a lot of the scenes, Ms Douglas is standing there saying the lines and that is enough because she is such an animated performer, but there are some scenes where there is a lot more physical acting and movement. The fact these scenes are acted out so much more shows how important the scenes are and the impact is even stronger.
Ms Douglas’ character is very lovely and likeable and she is very honest in her confession. I know the whole point about confession is being honest, but I kind of feel like Ms Douglas goes beyond that, beyond the facts of what happened and she shares her whole self with the priest she is confessing to, with God and with us. I think her honesty is very admirable and very brave.
Ms Douglas is also really good at playing all the other characters. They are all very strong and interesting characters and I feel like I know them. A lot of people who do monologues with lots of characters dress in quite neutral clothes which kind of work for all the characters, but Ms Douglas wears a white dress and a really nice sparkly hairband. This gives us a really strong image of what the main character is like, but her acting is so good, we don’t notice the white dress and sparkly hairband when she is playing other characters.
Sacrament is sad and scary in places, but the main
feeling I have about the play is that it is really lovely and I think it could
inspire a lot of people too.
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