THE MEMORY OF WATER. To 8 October.

Watford

THE MEMORY OF WATER
by Shelagh Stephenson

Palace Theatre To 8 October 2005
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat 1, 8 Oct 3pm 5 Oct 2.30pm
Audio-described 8 Oct 3pm
Captioned 4 Oct
Runs 2hr 30min One interval;

TICKETS: 01923 225671
www.watfordpalace.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 27 September

Characters and script not allowed to speak for themselves.Shelagh Stephenson's play shows 3 sisters gathering for their mother's funeral unlike Anton Chekhov who wrote about 3 sisters remembering their father's death. 3's the ideal number, allowing diverse character and relationships without taking on too many people to develop in an evening.

Stephenson's magical realism introduces dead mother Vi, seen as a young party animal, a shallow creature, young as in a child's memory, appearing to her eldest daughter, the sleep-deprived doctor Mary. Meanwhile Mary's sisters - alternative remedy enthusiast Teresa and low self-esteem Catherine, a luckless-in-love shopaholic - keep invading the room, along with Mary's lover Mike, unwilling to commit or break from his wife, and Teresa's partner Frank, who hates alternative medicines and his role as their salesman.

Stephenson weaves themes of inheritance and guilt, plus the inevitability of the past bearing on the present through the title phenomenon, a scientific claim that water, deprived of its mineral content, can retain its beneficial effects. Nothing ever disappears. This is explored in a play that's often comic but where humour always arises from character.

At least it should, but the impact's muffled in Joyce Branagh's Watford revival, which unhappily lumbers its characters with generalised stage-Northern accents (it's amazing to discover the production used a voice coach). As a result the dialogue often appears fake and rhythmically dead, soon becoming tiresome.

Even the fine Miranda Foster, as the dead mother, is affected. Worse, Catherine Shipton seems incapable of saying anything without employing some item from her extensive repertory of facial grimaces, arm gestures or feet movements. Michelle Bunyan's Catherine shows more sense of character, but only by a short way, with lines often exaggerated. For the piece is played as if it's stylised comedy, rather than as a character piece with humorous moments.

The merciful exception is Jacquetta May's Mary, who does speak from the character's experience, giving a sense of real feelings behind the words. Significantly, she's the only one not lumbering herself with an awful accent.

The men are bland, the set overly assertive. The play's strength speaks through, but is muffled in this revival.

Mary: Jacquetta May
Vi: Miranda Foster
Teresa: Catherine Shipton
Catherine: Michelle Bunyan
Mike: Gary Beadle
Frank: Robert Duncan

Director: Joyce Branagh
Designer: Becky Hurst
Lighting: Natasha Chivers
Voice coach: Sally Hague

2005-09-29 17:43:36