The Unmanageable Sisters

The title The Unmanageable Sisters takes its cue from a remark of Éamon de Valera’s that women were “the boldest and most unmanageable revolutionaries”, yet the play makes no case for them as revolutionaries, if anything they are cruelly managed, prisoners of the puritanical State de Valera created. Deirdre Kinaham adapted Tremblays play Les Belles-Soeurs giving it an Irish focus, capturing the wit, kindness and spirit in their struggle to be recognised.

The time is the early 70’s, we are given an astute synopsis of the plight of Irish women some half a century ago. Beholden to the church and their husbands and of course Father Scully whose word is law?

We are in Ballymun Dublin, Andrew Laws terrific set design of a run-down Ballymun tower block flat has its own recognisable period detail, as do the clothes from Peter Russell which tell you much about the character of each of the women, well done guys.  A slight hic-up with the lighting of the individual soliloquy scene on the evening I attended, sound was on track.   We are introduced to Linda (Felicity Lawless) dancing energetically around the room. Her mother Geri (Tina Wyatt), who has just won a million Green Shield stamps ecstatic, she invites her neighbours, four outspoken sisters (1 spurned), three tolerant daughters and one feisty mother-in-law for the evening. The purpose to help (help themselves) stick the million stamps in the booklets to reclaim her prizes. “I’ll do up the whole house, I will!” Linda however has other ideas refusing to join them, much to her mother’s outrage.

“I’m fed up of it. Fed up of this dreary, rotten life,” spits Marie (Andrea Jones) as she is the first to arrive. What starts as a tedious evening, the women half-heartedly sticking stamps for their undeserved neighbour. Their attitudes and outbursts may sound ridiculous and exaggerated, expressing how they are scandalised by dancing, which the priest Father Scully says is a sin, the idea that any woman seen anywhere in the vicinity of a nightclub is nothing more than a common slut, and that too much education for a woman is a dangerous thing; start reading books and who knows where it might lead! You feel that such sentiments were common in their lives in1970s Dublin.  A favourite for me was the harmonious bitter sweet rendition of a song celebrating the orgasmic pleasure of playing bingo: a show highlight for me. Not to forget the ornamental Chinese bookends quite brilliant.

The gleeful gossip cannot be repressed and one by one astonishing secrets are revealed. The arrival of spurned sister (fallen women) Patsy Guerin (Geri Griffith) causes great consternation within the gathering.  Repressed but irrepressible, each of the women get their own opportunity to step outside the binding reality of their lives and confess innermost desires and frustrations that they would never otherwise voice.

Set against this, the teenage Linda Lawless and her friends can see the need to escape their life in Dublin and strike out against its restrictions. Lisa Pearce (Emilia Lewis) confides her pregnancy to Linda and her need to get to England for an abortion, which tragically is still the case today three decades later.

The unmistakeable creative style of direction by Yvette Owen is evident in the performance of this extremely accomplished comedy. In a play that has limited dramatic action, relying rather on nostalgic references, insightful observations, recognisable characters and the great comic interaction between them that gradually draws the audience into the Green Shield stamp sticking party. It is so obvious to us the audience that the 15 strong cast have had an absolute ball rehearsing for this production. Well done, Yvette. Great job.

This play is really a study in subservience, of inculcated Catholic shame that makes the women their own jailers. “Do I look like someone who’s ever won anything?” is a common refrain.

The Unmanageable Sisters serves as a timely reminder that not all women want the same things, sometimes at the expense of their own self-interest, and that when it comes to change, if we do not learn from, and face up to, our history rather than our nostalgia, we might well be doomed to repeat the errors of our past.

Seldom have I had the pleasure of seeing such terrific actresses congregate on a single stage. The cast: Tina Wyatt, Felicity Parry, Andrea Jones, Lisa Thomas, Ali Wheeler, Kath Lamb, Vanessa Duffy, Jo Ridgely, Fran Hamer, Caroline Young, Emilia Lewis, Lucy  Stanway, Christine Tickell, Lesley Halsall, Geri Griffith.

Another amateur premiere for Aston Heys, a truly terrific production, it would be impossible and I feel unfair to pick out one person so I am not going to do so.

Just to say many congratulations and thank you for a wonderful entertaining evening.

 

Joanne Rymer

District 4

NODA

 

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