Run Sister Run by Chloe Moss. Studio 2, the Arcola, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston Junction, London E8 until 26 July 2025, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Marc Brenner.

Run Sister Run by Chloe Moss. Studio 2, the Arcola, 24 Ashwin Street, Dalston Junction, London E8 until 26 July 2025,

3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Exhausting & dazzling.”

The complicated relationship between two sister, one married with a teenage son, one single, is explored in this overwrought and overcomplicated play by Chloe Moss – for some reason, and it never justifies itself – she has chosen to tell it in segments in which the events of some forty years get mixed up. It could have been enlightening, it is simply confusing but what is not in doubt is that Jo Herbert as Connie, the married one, and Kelly Gough as Ursula, the single one with a drug problem, give deeply felt performances. They are exhausting to watch. But really one ends none the wiser as to what it has all been about. It opens with Connie's 18 year old son coming home in a bad mood. He has been dumped by his girl friend. In reality there is more. She is pregnant. She has also decided not to have an abortion. This throws his parents int contrasting reactions – father, who is somewhat to the right of Gengis Khan, is furious, Connie turns excrituatingly maternal. Then we get Kelly's problems, and the meeting between her and Connie's new boy friend, a gormless guy called Adrian who is nothing like what he turns into. In time we forget all about Jack, except that we learn Adrian is not his father, and the war of words between the two sisters over the decades take over. It has bee directed with a firm hand by Narlie Haco, given the mess of material, and there is an interesting set by Tomas Palmer although what the point of all the plastic buckets full of artificial blue flowers and petals that keep getting emptied at time of high drama by the two women is escaped me completely. It is evening, if stars mean anything, when they deserve four but the,material does not. It apparently tells a story about love that wounds and heals in equal measure while confronting the darkness of trauma and loss. If Ms Haco says so it surely must.

Cast

Jo Herbety – Connie

Kelly Gough – Ursula

Theo Fraser Steele – Adrian

Charlie Beaven – Jack

Creatives

Director – Marlie Haco

Set & Costume Designer – Tomas Palmer

Composer & Sound Designer – Akos Lustyik

Lightong Designer – Alex Forey