First Performance at the Hampstead theatre April 25th 2003
A summary of the play - Research from backstage.com
As we begin, Dawta, the eldest child of four, is in a rage at her mother, delivering a scalding tongue-lashing. As Green's incantatory, jabb
ingly repetitive language spews forth, we start to suspect that Dawta is furious with her mother for facilitating Dawta's sexual abuse at the hands of her father. In finely wrought scenes of varying length, from fleeting to substantial, Green charts the effect of the revelation on Mum, who righteously defends herself; prim Sister #1, whose memory can best be described as convenient; aggressive Sister #2, in ferocious denial; and withdrawn Brother, who reveals his own abuse, heretofore unknown to anyone, to Dawta, while refusing to tell anyone else. But the lid is off the boiling pot, and attempts to restore it only lead to the inevitable explosion and devastating result.
Research from the guardian by Lyn Gardner
Her first sister tries to piece together bits of the story. But is her memory selective? Unreliable? Or straight as a die? Sister number two provides an entirely different perspective, her hostility to Dawta crackling across the room like electricity. Is she telling the truth when she says her childhood was all peaches and cream? If so, how and why? Who is she protecting?
It is only gradually that the pieces start to fit together like some terrible jigsaw, culminating in an exquisitely torturous scene towards the end of a family game of musical chairs in which the unspeakable truth is finally revealed.
Review from Charles Isherwood
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