‘Surprising, sometimes poetic, and punctuated with sharp tangs of satire and humour.’
Kelly Jones’ My Mother’s Funeral: The Show, directed by Charlotte Bennet, was a well-crafted, emotionally stirring play. At times it evoked the nostalgia of watching an old childhood film, and at other times it conjured feelings of stress and desperation, like a race against a clock. The script was surprising, sometimes poetic, and punctuated with sharp tangs of satire and humour.
The play depicts a moment in time of Abigail’s (Nicole Sawyer) life as she struggles to cope under the tremendous weight of grief – as well as the financial cost of her mother’s (Debra Baker) unexpected death. Time and reality are manipulated in My Mother’s Funeral – the end date is looming and we feel time rapidly shifting, hurling like a thunderous train towards a deadline Abigail has to meet in order to give her mother the funeral she feels she deserves. To achieve this, she must – quickly – get a script commissioned in order to meet the £4,000 fee, which means she must write something closer to her heart; something more ‘through her own lens’ ;- something more personal.
Thus, My Mother’s Funeral becomes a play-within-a-play, whereby Abigail attempts to pour her relationship with her mother and her grief into a show that fits the requirements of the theatre and creatives she works for. It asks questions of how we create and what kind of art we make – should we capitalise on our pain if it serves a greater purpose? How does putting ourselves and our experiences into art warp our perception of our relationships and our own truths, once they are put into the hands of others and when we seek to exploit the stories of the people closest to us? How far should we lean into the expectations of the industry to make art that fits within the confines of the institutions we work for and within? And – ultimately – can we do this without losing our own dignity as artists?
Abigail’s play begins to stray further away from her core truth, which exacerbates her grief; she is forced to grieve both the mother she had and the mother written into her script, as the other creatives begin to warp and shape her experiences within her play into one of caricatures and working class stereotypes.
Her mother tells her – ‘Don’t confuse their version of your life for your own’ – which I feel perfectly summarises the play. We manipulate ourselves to fit into boxes to survive, to see ourselves and reorientate ourselves through a lens that we often feel aligns better with other people’s ideas of us. As Abilgail’s boss (Samuel Armfield) states, the work should impact us, (the audience), but simultaneously make us ‘feel safe that it will never be us’.
Hence, we find ourselves flicking through fragments of reality and fiction, the pieces held together and suspended in a singular truth: – that her mother is gone. It is this force the keeps Abigail – and the audience – anchored in her grief as the lines between reality and theatricality become increasingly blurred. This was spectacularly done, as the lights (designed by Joshua Gadsby) and the set (Rhys Jarman) facilitated the absurd dramatization of her mother’s funeral, which climaxes as Abigail teeters on the edge with her feet rooted in her grief – and literally inside her mother’s grave.
I did feel as though the absurdism and theatricality could be further heightened – that the use of time and space could be further manipulated. Instead of pushing the boat out into choppier and daring waters, it felt that it instead remained safely on shore. This is not a criticism as much as it is a curiosity – how would it change the show if Abigail completely loses all control? Or if the satirical edge was a little sharper?
One of the most interesting narrative threads within the play was the differences in the sibling’s experience of their mother, and how this at times compounded their grief as they are unable to conglomerate their opposing versions of her and find connection in their different ways of grieving. Samuel Armfield’s performance multi-rolling as Abigail’s brother and her superior was faultless, smoothly switching between the two and highlighting the nuances in the anger and vulnerability of Abigail’s brother and the hypocritical and imperceptive nature of her boss.
All in all, Kelly Jones’ My Mother’s Funeral invites you to feel deeply and think inquiringly. The play felt universal but also deeply personal, which is a testament to great writing and wonderful performances from the cast.