A tender wander through mental health and family
Sitting (In Silence) opens with a spiritual gong, which reverberates around the beautiful old anatomy lecture theatre at Summerhall. A woman dressed a bit like a shipwrecked Amish farmer (Kitty Falcon, who also wrote the script) emerges and sits cross-legged on the floor. She’s at a meditation camp – the kind where you aren’t allowed to speak until day ten. Despite the gardens being segregated, her dad (Patrick O’Donnell) turns up, breaking the rules and undoing any progress she’s made. Sitting (In Silence) is contained within this single conversation, stolen moments between group seminars, taking in themes of mental health, family, and keeping going in the face of adversity.
Dad seems to have been written as a comic character, but at least at first he’s actually incredibly annoying: disruptive, insensitive, unco-operative and highly critical. You want to grab him by the T-shirt and yell: “Just let her try it!” His daughter enables these frustrations, allowing herself to be led astray. Looking back, these interactions make more sense in context, but there’s no escaping that, for much of Sitting (In Silence), both characters are the sort of people you’d walk away from at an office party.
The meat of the play comes once these jokes are out of the way, and both characters speak openly about their vulnerabilities. Dad has discovered what prompted his daughter’s breakdown and attendance at meditation camp: she punched her fellow children’s entertainer in the face when he made a joke about suicide. The daughter is also wrestling with the guilt of reporting someone at the camp for speaking yesterday – it felt like the right thing to do in the moment.
Dad’s battles with depression are hinted at, then confirmed: “some people are just heavy-hearted”. The pair discuss him going missing, mother and daughter heading out in the car, and finding him in a drunken, bloody heap. As the conversation gets heavier, he starts singing to avoid follow-up questions. But eventually he says what he came to say.
A poignant ending is not altogether unexpected, but powerfully resonant nonetheless. Falcon really shines as the daughter, portraying her frightened pain, and assuming he’s not like that in real life O’Donnell’s frustrating father is also exceptionally performed. Sitting (In Silence) is more enjoyable to look back upon than to experience – the revelations of its final moments recolour every part of the previous interaction. Through this lens, it’s a beautiful and deeply touching story, but it doesn’t always feel that way while watching it.
Show Listing: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/sitting-in-silence
LISTINGS INFORMATION:
Venue: Anatomy Lecture Theatre, Summerhall
Dates: Aug 6th–16th, 18th–23rd, 25th–31st
Time: 14:45 (60 mins)
Ticket prices: £17 / concessions £14.50
Fringe box office: 0131 226 0000 / www.edfringe.com