Memory of Water

Shelagh Stephenson’s bitter-sweet comedy The Memory of Water is about family, grief and the unreliability of memory.  Three sisters, Teresa, Mary and Catherine reunite on the death of their mother Vi.  As the play progresses childhood conflicts reemerge, memories collide, and the secrets of their separate lives are finally revealed.

The required setting depicting a bedroom in a house which is possibly in danger of disappearing into the sea was good as were the properties.  The play is set in the late 1990s and the sisters’ day to day costumes were fine and the amount of Mother’s clothes dragged from a seemingly bottomless wardrobe covered several styles which was exactly appropriate.  The lighting design courtesy of Graham Royston was first class.

This play would not work without four strong and talented actresses and Director Kieron Toner was well blessed here as performances by the mother and three sisters were particularly strong. 

Mary the “middle one” was played superbly by Andi Dodds. Mary is resented by the others but she the only one who “sees” Vi, their Mother.  There was some beautiful emotive acting from Andi particularly in her longing for a child .  Teresa’s resentment spikes during an argument and she reveals Mary had a child when she was 17.  This sets Mary on a course to find a tin with Patrick’s birth certificate.  The ensuing scene when Teresa, dominantly played by Frances Rennie, finds Mary with the tin and breaks the news that Patrick died in an accident 12 years previously, was heartrendingly touching and beautifully played by both actresses.  This situation causes Teresa to take to the whiskey bottle ending up drunk which she handled to great effect. In a well-thought out portrayal of Catherine the youngest sister who binges on shopping for inappropriate clothes, go-nowhere love affairs, and drugs, Lucy Woodcock ran the necessary gamut of emotions impressively.  Powerful performances came from all three actresses who, despite the morbid situation they were in, brought the humour of the script to the fore.  

Becky Hawker played what is probably the most difficult of the female roles, that of Vi, the ghost, or hallucination, of the deceased mother who only appears to Mary.  This was extremely well portrayed and Vi’s description of how it felt to suffer from Alzheimers was sensitively done.  Yet another impressive performance.

The male roles are somewhat overshadowed by the strength of the female roles. Frank (David Wilson) Teresa's long suffering husband downtrodden and defeated, starts on the long road of self discovery as the play progresses and Mike (Dave Weir) Mary's married lover, whose relationship though seemingly genuine, is so complex it makes it is hard to see how it was likely to end in anything other than disaster. Individually both gave good support.

This was an enjoyable evening of thoughtful entertainment and a first class production under the excellent guidance of director Kieron Toner supported by a very competent backstage team.

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