This production by the Mission’s Next Stage company has had a very prolonged gestation, beginning rehearsals in 2019, and twice postponed in successive Covid lockdowns.
But, their staging of Shelagh Stephenson’s 1996 play finally hits the re-opened Covid-secure Mission tonight in front of an actual in-person audience, albeit carefully masked and socially distanced. It feels like the lifting at last of a great weight, and the mood in the room is one of joy.
The play itself is not entirely joyful: three sisters on the eve of their mother’s funeral argue, bicker, and blame each other for slights, real or imagined, going back to their childhood: very much in the long theatrical tradition of families at war. The title of the piece reflects a major theme: can memory be reliable?
If two people don’t agree on the memory of an incident, who is right? The dementia of the deceased mother, who still appears (flashback? a ghost?) to argue with her offspring only adds to the confusion.
The title of the work comes from the homoeopathic theory, stated by one of the characters at one point, that however much you dilute the active ingredient of a medicine, till in fact it has disappeared altogether and only water remains, it still retains its healing effect. That the water, in fact, has memory. A sceptic (me) might wonder if they had ever heard of the placebo effect. But I digress.
The piece itself is full of action, with skeletons popping in and out of cupboards throughout, and the gradual revealing of what might be truths constantly shifting the picture of what is actually going on between the characters; the mother, the daughters, and the daughters’ unreliable male partners – one of whom is only an offstage presence in occasional fraught one-sided phone conversations.
To sustain the credibility of this emotional maelstrom requires considerable acting skill, which thankfully is here in spades.
There is pathos, there is anger, there is bitterness, there is affection, there is longing, there is often humour as well, and above all there is emotional truth from a multi-talented six-strong (very strong!) cast in a tightly-directed and powerful piece that has all Next Stage’s customary high production values.
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Reviewer: John Christopher Wood | Star rating: ****