Banshee, May 15, 1996

Written by Jodi Gallagher

La Mama/ Courthouse Theatre until June 1, 1996

Reviewed by Kate Herbert around May 14, 1996

When a banshee, a female spirit, screams it portends a death in the household. In Jodi Gallagher's play, Banshee, two die: father, Collum and daughter, Imogen (Caroline Bock, Kirk Alexander).

 However, it is not an outside force screaming but the daughter, who has been shrieking in both pleasure and pain for sixteen years. The adult child  at twenty-six, fights a perverse battle between her love and loathing for her drunken, boorish, incestuous father.

Being a 1920's-30's poet and academic, "He doesn't behave conventionally," chorus his wife (Liz Jones) and older lover (Vanessa Ready). "He's an artist," and his poor, ravaged daughter is blamed and guilt-ridden to the point of prostituting herself, slashing her wrists and finally attempting to force her abuser to advertise their love to the world.

As in most incest and rape cases, it is not about love, but power. This case-book narcissist cares nothing for her, allowing her to die 'so he can live'. She wreaks her hollow vengeance after death, interfering with his already failing muse.

Banshee, the text, teeters on the brink of melodrama but holds the line. The first half particularly is a clever conjunction of witty amongst dark moments. Imogen's opening monologue, played with bleak and helpless intensity by Caroline Bock, is a delicately rendered piece.

A few scenes interrupt the flow of the narrative. The entire funeral scene could be lost and some savage edits in the 160 minutes could serve. At times the banter undercuts any genuine sense of danger.  The poetic might have been re-introduced later. It reverts to an essentially naturalistic style which is not assisted by the often mannered acting and over-enunciating of some cast who are not quite connected with the text and a couple of awkward scenes changes.

The forbidden passion between these two is most horribly real in the overtly sexual moments. I found myself repeating as they kissed, "He's not really her father." I was made uncomfortably aware that, one in four women being incest victims, somebody in the audience was suffering.

It is satisfying to see this dreadful creature suffer after ruining the lives of three women: wife, lover, daughter. The incest is almost a vehicle for highlighting the hideousness of his exertion of will over them. "It is essential to be doomed to be a poet", says Collum and the scream of the banshee seals his fate.

KATE HERBERT