The Almighty Sometimes

This story of a mother-daughter relationship has you continually shifting sympathy. One minute you’re on the side of the moody 18-year-old daughter, who has been on medication since she was 11 and who now has proof (Proof!) that all those pills have stopped her creative flow. Next minute you’re on the side of the single mother, desperate that her depressed, hormonal daughter is heading for self-destruction. Now she’s an adult, with a boyfriend, what will happen when the maternal chains are loosened?

The balance between the two characters is the highlight of Kendall Feaver’s first play at the Stables Theatre and, in this gritty production by Lee Lewis, the performances of both Hannah Waterman (Renee, the mother, a teacher) and Brenna Harding (Anna, the daughter) are evenly matched. Both are excellent: Anna’s plight is brilliantly revealed and Renee doesn’t realise the extent of her own depression.

Completing the cast are Vivienne (Penny Cook), star psychiatrist who must face the potential damage of her ‘cures’, and Oliver (Shiv Palekar), the local boy who keeps a tight rein on his own deprived upbringing while struggling to deal with the mood swings of his new girlfriend.

Creative writing done by Anna before her debilitating disorder seems to show what she might have been without the medication. Even the psychiatrist is brought up short. What if she’d never started on the pills?

All this is told on a plain, white stage with table and four chairs, designed by Dan Potra, and lit excellently and subtly by Daniel Barber.

This is just across the road from the Kings Cross Theatre where you can see You Got Older by members of the Mad March Hare Theatre Company, another show which brought ringing praise from its audiences. Brilliant times, indeed!

Frank Hatherley

Photographer: Brett Boardman