What’s it all about?
Loss, abandonment, purposelessness, the dangers of an overactive imagination. I could be more specific, but that wouldn’t be playing writer Florian Zeller’s enigmatic game.
While roughly it follows the plight of a mother traumatised by her son growing up and leaving home, the tricksy Mr Zeller plays and replays scenes with mood and event shifts. By the end you don’t know reality from misunderstanding or entire fabrication. The only thing you’re sure about is that the mother is not in a good place. I think.
Who’s in it?
Gina McKee plays the titular relation whose obsession – which borders on inappropriate – with her male offspring eclipses all else. Part hollowed out husk, part prodding antagonist, part utter fantasist, McKee has created a woman with whom we both sympathise and want to shake into life.
Richard Clothier, William Postlethwaite and Frances McNamee provide the many faces of her husband, son and his girlfriend as they transform and morph depending on her mood.
What should I look out for?
The moments of truth amid the fantasy that may only be fantasised truth but are true nonetheless. McKee can’t pour any more love into her eyes when she gazes at her returned son.
In a nutshell?
Like an emotional Rubik’s cube, solving the puzzle of truth in The Mother is a confusing, addictive, seducing, momentarily heart-breaking experience.
What’s being said on Twitter?
Will I like it?
The Mother is a production for people who long to be intrigued and thirst to be beguiled. Its greatest weakness – its shifting characters and aimless plot lacking a reality anchor – is also its greatest strength. What is the mother going through? I can’t say you’ll ever definitely know, but the pleasure is in the puzzle.
The Mother plays at the Tricycle Theatre until 5 March. You can book tickets through the theatre’s website.