THE MEMORY OF WATER
By
Shelagh Stephenson
Oldham Coliseum Theatre until 5th June
Review by Brian Gorman
A sweltering summer’s evening in a theatre can be absolute torture, but if it’s a fabulous production then one doesn’t mind the suffocating temperature so much. Well, luckily for the audience, what we got was an absolutely fantastic staging of Shelagh Stephenson’s Olivier award-winning play, ‘The Memory Of Water’. This is the story of three sisters attending their mother’s funeral and struggling to make sense of their relationships with her, their partners, lovers, and each other. There shouldn’t really be much room for laughs here, but such is the skill of director Kevin Shaw, that we got to experience the whole gamut of human emotion from a superb ensemble cast. The setting is a ramshackle old house in the Yorkshire countryside, with a snowstorm raging outside. Sophie Khan’s set is dustily realistic, except for the subtle, artificial placing of stacks of books at all manner of odd angles which perfectly compliments the themes of the play; time being out of joint, memories being unreliable and highly subjective, and general entropy.
Eva Pope (a familiar face from tv’s ‘Waterloo Road’) plays the elder sister, Teresa; the dependable one who stayed home to nurse the dying mother. Resentful of her siblings, and jealous of middle sister Mary (Maeve Larkin) who was the favoured daughter and is now a high flying doctor. Catherine Kinsella completes the bereaved trio as the moody, mixed-up tearaway (also called Catherine) desperate for love but going about trying to find it in all the wrong places. All three actresses give full-bloodied, gutsy and brave performances, with each getting some superbly directed moments in which to shine. Eva Pope threatens to devour everyone on stage in one highly charged scene, when she explodes with an outpouring of anger and bitterness after downing half a bottle of whiskey. Maeve Larkin plays Mary with a detached superiority before emotionally dissolving when a long-hidden family secret is shockingly revealed. And Catherine Kinsella, playing the extravagant, highly strung child-woman, goes into mental breakdown with a shattering hundred mile an hour monologue about how unfair she feels life has been to her (to the resigned amusement of her sisters). This was probably the best moment of the night; a beautiful performance eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure.
Playing the ghostly figure of Vi (the mother), Emma Gregory put in a tremendous performance as a brassy and voluptuous Amazonian in a dress so tight it’s a wonder she could breathe. At complete ease with herself and displaying a ferocious man-eating attitude that, if it could be bottled, would surely be outlawed immediately. With so much female talent on show, the male members of the cast truly had their work cut out, but rose to the occasion. If there is one weakness in the script, it has to be the slightly underwritten male parts. Paul Barnhill played Mike, the married lover of fellow doctor Mary, with stoical solidness, but had little to do except spend half the evening dressed only in a towel. Defending his decision not to leave his ailing wife, Barnhill communicated a range of mixed emotions and motives in a well-judged, understated and subtle performance. Full marks to director Shaw again for balancing the characters so well, and for handling the mix of gut-wrenching drama and side-splitting belly laughs. Completing the cast was Tim Treslove as Frank, the amiable and somewhat downtrodden husband of Teresa. Again, a somewhat underwritten part, but handled with great skill, pathos, and excellent comic timing. The music track opening and closing the show was Nat ‘King’ Cole’s classic ‘Unforgettable’; a perfect choice if ever there was one; this was a memorable evening indeed.
By
Shelagh Stephenson
Oldham Coliseum Theatre until 5th June
Review by Brian Gorman
A sweltering summer’s evening in a theatre can be absolute torture, but if it’s a fabulous production then one doesn’t mind the suffocating temperature so much. Well, luckily for the audience, what we got was an absolutely fantastic staging of Shelagh Stephenson’s Olivier award-winning play, ‘The Memory Of Water’. This is the story of three sisters attending their mother’s funeral and struggling to make sense of their relationships with her, their partners, lovers, and each other. There shouldn’t really be much room for laughs here, but such is the skill of director Kevin Shaw, that we got to experience the whole gamut of human emotion from a superb ensemble cast. The setting is a ramshackle old house in the Yorkshire countryside, with a snowstorm raging outside. Sophie Khan’s set is dustily realistic, except for the subtle, artificial placing of stacks of books at all manner of odd angles which perfectly compliments the themes of the play; time being out of joint, memories being unreliable and highly subjective, and general entropy.
Eva Pope (a familiar face from tv’s ‘Waterloo Road’) plays the elder sister, Teresa; the dependable one who stayed home to nurse the dying mother. Resentful of her siblings, and jealous of middle sister Mary (Maeve Larkin) who was the favoured daughter and is now a high flying doctor. Catherine Kinsella completes the bereaved trio as the moody, mixed-up tearaway (also called Catherine) desperate for love but going about trying to find it in all the wrong places. All three actresses give full-bloodied, gutsy and brave performances, with each getting some superbly directed moments in which to shine. Eva Pope threatens to devour everyone on stage in one highly charged scene, when she explodes with an outpouring of anger and bitterness after downing half a bottle of whiskey. Maeve Larkin plays Mary with a detached superiority before emotionally dissolving when a long-hidden family secret is shockingly revealed. And Catherine Kinsella, playing the extravagant, highly strung child-woman, goes into mental breakdown with a shattering hundred mile an hour monologue about how unfair she feels life has been to her (to the resigned amusement of her sisters). This was probably the best moment of the night; a beautiful performance eliciting laughter and tears in equal measure.
Playing the ghostly figure of Vi (the mother), Emma Gregory put in a tremendous performance as a brassy and voluptuous Amazonian in a dress so tight it’s a wonder she could breathe. At complete ease with herself and displaying a ferocious man-eating attitude that, if it could be bottled, would surely be outlawed immediately. With so much female talent on show, the male members of the cast truly had their work cut out, but rose to the occasion. If there is one weakness in the script, it has to be the slightly underwritten male parts. Paul Barnhill played Mike, the married lover of fellow doctor Mary, with stoical solidness, but had little to do except spend half the evening dressed only in a towel. Defending his decision not to leave his ailing wife, Barnhill communicated a range of mixed emotions and motives in a well-judged, understated and subtle performance. Full marks to director Shaw again for balancing the characters so well, and for handling the mix of gut-wrenching drama and side-splitting belly laughs. Completing the cast was Tim Treslove as Frank, the amiable and somewhat downtrodden husband of Teresa. Again, a somewhat underwritten part, but handled with great skill, pathos, and excellent comic timing. The music track opening and closing the show was Nat ‘King’ Cole’s classic ‘Unforgettable’; a perfect choice if ever there was one; this was a memorable evening indeed.
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