Byre Theatre, St Andrews, on tour June 2004

Molly Innes as Catherine © Byre Theare, 2004

WHEN THE subject of death has been tackled in the theatre it’s usually been in the form of high tragedy – everyone from the Greeks down – or low farce – the work of Joe Orton, for example. Shelagh Stephenson, however, takes the less trodden route of light comedy for this study of three sisters returning to the family home for the funeral of their mother.

In this, she is being true to that giddy graveside feeling you get when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Here, new age therapist Theresa (Jennifer Black), bookish doctor Mary (Alexandra Mathie) and wayward dope-smoker Catherine (Molly Innes) must cope with a host of contradictory emotions. They’re sad about their mother, yes, but that doesn’t stop them being amused, angry, perplexed and randy and all the other states that human beings find themselves in at the same time.

The Memory of Water starts off being a sharply written comedy about sibling squabbles before taking off into darker waters concerning the nature of death and the power of our memories. Director Muriel Romanes picks up on the latter strand by casting shadows, cine film and echoes of the past around the bickering sisters. She uses the stage space with great confidence, allowing the actors to roam freely in and around Isla Shaw’s set which is at once ordered and disordered, inside and out. One poignant speech by Molly Innes is delivered entirely with the actor’s back to the audience.

The other performers are similarly bold, capturing the fast-talking exchanges of family discourse with considerable pace and comic timing. They can be cruel, sympathetic, unforgiving and loving almost in the same breath. Their tightly drilled performances alone make the show worth seeing.

But for all the confidence they demonstrate in the play, they are let down by a script that wallows in the heightened emotions of the occasion instead of using those emotions to drive the plot. Watched over by their boyfriends and deceased mother, each of the sisters indulges in a session of self-obsessed soul-searching. The performances have considerable emotional conviction, but on a structural level we have no reason to care for these women’s neuroses and so lose interest.

It’s a play with high ambitions to say something weighty, but that fails to deliver on its promise. The ride is quite entertaining, all the same.

The Memory of Water can be seen at:
Lyth Arts Centre, Wick, Tuesday 8 June 2004
Plockton Village Hall, Tuesday 15 June
Aultbea Community Hall, Wednesday 16 June
Ardross Community Hall, Thursday 17 June
Birnam Institute, Dunkeld, Friday 18 June

© Mark Fisher, 2004