Theatre
new TERRITORIES Various venues. Glasgow. until Sat 19 Mar
Ni \‘i’ ‘.“./( )HK THE GIRL WITH THE RED HAIR Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. Sat 19 Feb—Sat 12 Mar
Anyone who has experienced grief will tell you of its peculiar come and go effect. For years on from their death, the person you have lost will be oppressively, or sometimes pleasurably, there, suddenly appearing on cue from the sight of some common object or turn of phrase in everyday conversation. The effect of this daily coming and going is more profound than we like to acknowledge. This sense of quiet and elegiac reverie is captured by Sharman McDonald’s script in this new work from the author of the 80$ classic When I Was a Girl I Used to Scream and Shout.
Set in a little seaside town in Fife, the piece focuses on a broader community affected by the death of a teenage girl. We meet her mother, who runs a cafe on the waterfront, fighting her emotional desiccation through a reluctant flirtation with a visiting truck driver. So too, the young girl the dead woman used to baby-sit, the daughter of the minister, lives with her
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obsession through a troubled friendship with another girl. The former boyfriend is compromised by feelings of guilt, which hangs over a new relationship, while two old ladies, one of whom is considering leaving the town, are also troubled by loss. All of this is presented with a kind of Chekovian sense of things past and things passing, with little spasms of humour disrupting the atmosphere, just as it does with grief.
Rich with imagery of lilies, these days often fashionably presented in bouquets for occasions other than funerals, of light, and of the ever-present sea, McDonald, who is, incidentally, the mother of actress Kiera Knightley, presents a kind of feast for the senses in her script. Directed by Mike Bradwell, currently artistic director of the Bush theatre, which co-produces this production, there‘s plenty of promise here. Bradwell was also a founder of Hull Truck, and in a different way than the style of that company, this piece elevates the experience of ordinary people and everyday life to what is, at least potentially, a rich and moving experience. Go see. (Steve Cramer)
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