THEATRE – DIGITAL STREAMING
Written by Kevin Summers
At La Mama Theatre 27 April to 8 May 2022
Live streamed on Fri 29 April 2022
Book here: https://lamama.com.au/whats-on/la-mama-hq-autumn-2022/the-right-words-on-the-day/
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ***
This review is published only on this blog. KH
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| Kirsty Snowden, Kirsty Child, pic from live stream |
As Judy (Kirsty Snowden) stands at a very formal lectern rehearsing and tinkering with the content of her eulogy, her mother, Kitty Ryan (Kirsty Child), persistently interrupts, correcting Judy’s cheerful and positive recollections of her mother’s past and objecting to any inaccuracies.
Summers used his own family experience, specifically his older sister’s relationship with their mother, as a basis for his script. This provides some authentic and credible detail for Kitty’s life growing up in Richmond in a working-class family, her working life, marriage, friendships and her surprisingly profitable gambling habit.
The eulogy is Summers’ vehicle to explore the dysfunctional relationship between Judy and her mother, Kitty, who is eventually revealed to have been a punishing and controlling matriarch with tyrannical behaviour and racist attitudes.
The truth of this story lends authenticity to the play. However, a real life rarely has a dramatic arc or the coherent dramatic structure required for a play, so it needs to be constructed. Often, the drama may be inherent in a single episode of a life that may be developed into a structure with a strong plot, turning point and revelations.
The Right Words on the Day, directed by Jenny Seedsman, is a linear narrative exposition of Kitty Ryan’s life that has emotional moments and some surprises, but it lacks the clear dramatic conflict, tension and climax to act as the peak of a dramatic arc.
This expository style leaves the production looking static and sounding wordy and informational.
The eulogy needs to be more than a history of Kitty’s life and celebration of her character. It needs to be dramatic.
There is dramatic potential in the fraught relationship between mother and daughter that could be a clearer focus for the play.
Severely cutting Judy’s expository narration about Kitty’s life and focusing more time and dramatic dialogue on a select few episodes from Kitty’s life and the interaction between mother and daughter might create a stronger dramatic structure and illuminate the relationship further.
This is a play that is written with warmth and love, but it needs to take that larger leap from eulogy and to dramatic form.
by Kate Herbert
Written by Kevin Summers
Directed by Jenny Seedsman
Performed by Kirsty Child and Kirsty Snowden
Set design by Jenny Seedsman
Lighting design by Chuck Martin
Sound design by --
Stage manager - Chuck Martin
Photography credit - Peter Cogger
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