The Mourning After by
Verity Laughton
Playbox Beckett
Theatre until Nov, 1996
Reviewed by Kate
Herbert around Oct 25, 1996
If you have never
experienced the death of someone close, it is impossible to explain the very
odd actions and reactions which grief may cause. For example, why would a
woman whose husband has died the night before, spend Christmas Eve picnicking
alone on a beach?
Well, she does not feel alone. Former singer and radio star,
Belle Doyle, (Nancy Hayes) dines with the phantoms of her absent children and
dead husband on the familiar beach by Aunt Luce's holiday home.
As she lays out the turkey and scoffs a bottle and a half of
wine, she ambles about in her past, leading us gently through births and
marriages, comings-out, conflicts, joys and pains. Mainly, she tries to fathom
whether she killed hubbie, Harry by proposing to accept, against his wishes,
the lead role in a new musical. Harry has controlled her world for too many
years it seems.
The basic idea for the play is a good one. We listen to the
unfolding of Belle's history, her fraught relationships with Harry, lesbian
daughter Yvette and smug, pretty son "Magnus the Magnificent". The
problem is that there is little dramatic tension in the text. The narrative and
emotional journeys of the character are simplistic, lacking the layering which
is essential for a solo piece.
It relies on the stage being peopled with characters by one
actor and this is not effectively realised. The other characters are not
sufficiently significant and are left incomplete. There is too much explication
in the dialogue which could be left to the action. The major conflict for Belle
is whether she is betraying Harry by taking the role of Ned Kelly's mother but
her final decision is so swiftly achieved, that the drama of the problem is
obliterated.
Nancy Hayes was well received by the mainly older female
audience at the Saturday matinee but her musical skills were wasted in this
piece in which she sings only a single finale. Her performance and direction by
another musical identity, Tony Sheldon, did not provide the dynamic range which
might have invested this piece with some emotional texture.
The Mourning After is quite watchable but it does not even
scratch the surface of the issue of grief and its associated guilt and
nostalgia.
KATE HERBERT
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