As this was a one woman show, Moana Doll did an incredible job of keeping everyone hooked to her words and engaged, despite the lack of traditional ‘action’ going on
Never Fully Here by Moana Doll delved into an exploration of self and identity from a point of view that I had not seen before. The story was told from the point of view of a white German immigrant, and explored the idea of being a ‘passing’ immigrant in an unfortunately nationalistic age of society. The idea of ‘passing’ was an idea that showed the both deliberate and indeliberate hostility of some of the British culture, especially considering the recent protests taking place in London, where the play was both set and performed. This choice showed that Moana was confident in her point of view but also provided an undercurrent of comfortability in her place in British society, further emphasising this idea of being a ‘passing’ immigrant.
As this was a one woman show, Moana Doll did an incredible job of keeping everyone hooked to her words and engaged, despite the lack of traditional ‘action’ going on. The audience was eager to hear all about what was happening next. One of the things that particularly helped this was the almost separation from herself, and the use of both first and third person language – referring to herself as ‘she’ multiple times throughout the piece. The other thing that this barrier helped was in giving the audience the ability to both empathise with things she was saying and to be able to consider other people in similar situations. As this play was about a white ‘passing’ immigrant this allowed the audience to realise this difficulty of being in this situation as opposed to the stereotypical immigrants situation – and the stories you hear more often. This brought light to a story that is not usually put to the forefront, so this brought awareness to a group of people that don’t normally get their story told.
One gorgeous moment of connection between Moana and the audience was when she was making a cup of tea – a very traditionally British stereotype, and she chose to make eye contact with the audience, assessing their reactions to her decision to put the milk in first. When an audience member cringed slightly, she reacted to this, and made the decision to not put the milk in and instead put the water in first. This came across as her trying to mimic behaviour – something she talks about in the piece frequently, the idea of having to fit in and be like everyone else, suggesting a level of herd mentality.
Overall, this piece was moving and shed light on a group of stories that otherwise would’ve been unlikely to be told, and allowed this story to be told to an audience that could empathise and relate to.
Written by Eloise Barber