My Mother's Funeral @ The Yard Theatre

My Mother’s Funeral is a play about grief, but moreso it is a play about class, particularly about the relationships ambitious young people from working class backgrounds have with their families, and with the middle class environments they find themselves in. Abigail is a young playwright whose mother has just died; a working class woman who raised her two children on benefits, her mum did not have any money to leave her, so Abigail is faced with the financial burden of a funeral and the social burden of her feelings of inadequacy around her inability to provide one, and the anxiety around a council funded funeral and the lack of dignity that may hold. She chooses to cave, to make the art that is demanded of her as a working class artist — poverty porn — to hopefully earn the money to pay for her mother’s funeral. 

The play weaves between spaces and times in a really clever way, with the 3 actors shifting between characters. With only 3 actors a host of places, times, and characters are shown, and the structure mirrors the overlapping worlds Abigail is facing, as she unsuccessfully attempts to simultaneously sell her personal story, but keep her personal life and the shame she feels about it separated. What really struck me (as an artist from a working class background) was the explorations around love — what does it mean to love your children and express that love when money isn’t an option? One scene in particular was stark in its criticism of both the middle class inability to understand love without finances, and the working class inability to fund love. The friction between these two points of view was present and really thoughtfully articulated through Abigail’s struggle. It is refreshing to see such an honest examination of the working class experience, and in particular the experience of the children of working class parents entering middle class spaces, where despite their intelligence and passion, they will always feel like outsiders. 

The staging is simple yet layered, using the play about a play within a play (how meta) to create additional meaning in the spaces and relationships of objects. Simple moments are both hyper real and clearly theatricalised. At times the performances are a bit shouty where they would benefit from nuance, but overall the pacing and staging were very good as were the performances — in particular the physical work of the performers. 

Small Forward - Belarus Free Theatre @ Barbican Pit

Working with famous Belarusian basketball player Katya Snetsyna, Belarus Free Theatre’s latest production, KS6: Small Forward, focusses on Katya’s experience of coming to the realisation of the atrocities her government commits against its citizens, and being ostracised and outcast herself after standing up against the dictatorship, speaking out, and coming out as homosexual. 

The production deploys Belarus Free Theatre’s trademark playful stagecraft, this time framing the production around a basketball game, including a kiss cam, live DJ, and half time basket competition. While it is fun and engaging, the production as a whole doesn’t quite hang together — which is unfortunate, as the story is compelling, and important to raise awareness. 

The use of music was clever, with the live DJ Blanka Barbara not only hyping up the crowd as if at a basketball game, but then also live mixing the underscoring for the entire play. The design used the tools of a gym and basketball game to create multiple spaces and evoke feelings which were at times really powerful, but also at times didn’t quite have the desired impact. 

All in all not a bad production, just not their best — which is unfortunate as the subject matter deserves attention. While led by Snetsyna who is an engaging person (she lit up in the pre-show chat) most moments of her as an actor fell flat — which is fair for a first time actor leading such a huge story. Additionally, I really liked the touch of sharing images and QR to write to prisoners, but although it did tie in to an element of the story (when she speaks of her friend who was imprisoned) the link feels tenuous — and again here I just wanted it to connect a little more deeply. 

NOWHERE - Fuel Theatre @ Battersea Arts Centre

Where are we safe? Khalid Abdalla’s solo show leaves nothing untouched in its challenge to the audience. Blending personal history with the politics that overshadow it, Khalid takes us through his family’s history as it relates to revolt, colonialism, and the current imperialist ventures in the West Bank and Palestine.

If it sounds heavy, it is - at times. But at times it is also darkly funny, light, playful, and despite the darkness, filled with hope.

Director Omar Elerian uses a brilliant blend of media to bring us this story - projections of old photographs, video which is and is not live (and it hard to tell when it transitions), and perhaps most movingly, images on a phone. To give the audience a story about contemporary uprisings which are made possible in many ways by the smartphone, which we far away primarily learn about through our phones, is nothing short of genius.

The play moves at a blistering pace and yet feels gentle, thoughtful. The performance, production, and script all come together in the most beautiful way, that the audience are left a little breathless, a little teary, and completely reminded of why we make theatre. This. This is why.

Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth

This play. THIS play. On one hand, it is still incredible; poetic, layered, complex. Funny yet heartbreaking. On the other hand, however, THIS play in a post-Brexit, post-Covid, cost-of-living crisis London is. . . what is it? It is no less funny, poetic, or complex. Mark Rylance is no less captivating and utterly transformed in his performance. The set, with full trees reaching into the flies and live chickens on stage, no less magical. The production and its performances are pitch-perfect.

And yet, now - in this moment - sitting in the West End, amongst audiences who are coming to see what has been hailed as THE play of our age. Audiences who have paid posh ticket prices amidst news stories of people who have to choose between eating and paying bills. . . it hits differently. The themes are more relevant than ever; the “old” and rural England vs the city. The wealthy vs the underclasses.

My sensitivity to some of the language — which would be wildly controversial if used on a Canadian stage due to its lack of sensitivity to Indigenous issues — bristles.

And the audience’s laughter, at times, hits not like we’re enjoying this story and the comedy of this man (who is objectively funny) but almost as poverty porn. It is desperately sad. The lives of those around Rooster will shift and change; some for the better, some inevitably for the worse. His son sees him beaten, broken. The audience were audibly sobbing through the matinee. And yet — will it change anything for them? For those around them? Will it resonate and call to action, or will they go home to wherever they came from, and spend their fortunate expendable income on the next West-End star vehicle they read about in The Guardian?

I want to have hope that it will. But frankly, I’m not so sure.