Have I No Mouth

Welcome to some truly reality theatre, an astonishing portrait of Irish family grief presented at the Sydney Festival by young Dublin company Brokentalkers. 

Feidlim Cannon and his mother Ann are on stage with their real-life psychotherapist Erich Keller.  After a little audience relaxation, the session begins.  As Feidlim bitches against his Mum’s melancholic display of object memories, the reality unfolds – both are desperately grieving the death 12 years ago of Feidlim’s father and, earlier, his baby brother.

Some family snaps and videos are projected but mostly this engrossing theatre is over a long table as mother and son question and recall these heartbreaking losses.  Their filial banter, impatience and ultimate deep bond is a reality almost unscriptable. 

Nudged by Keller, we hear of their despair, their impotence, their persistent routines, their shifting faith in God and self-healing, but most of all their anger.  At one stage, all of us are invited to blow up a balloon and release our anger with the air – but for Feidlim it’s not so easy.  He taunts, harangues and finally fights to the ground a figure of his dead Dad, wrapped like a mummy in bandages.

This is deeply moving theatre staged with just the truth of lived experience and few devices.  A flutter of snow passes for Christmas when the memories are worst and frozen into place. 

Have I No Mouth, directed by Cannon and Gary Keegan, has a few minor moments of drag and repetition but is wrenching in its detailed sweep of what grief is, including for those with an eye for its professional treatment.  The explosion of colour at the end is ecstatic.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Prudence Upton