Writer: Ambreen Razia
Directors: Róisín McBrinn and Sophie Dillon Moniram
When Aleena comes out of prison at first she seems a changed woman. She’s been doing yoga. Finding her chakras. Glimpsing her spirit animal. Her 15-year-old daughter Leila is impressed. But Aleena’s mother is not convinced. It’s a great start but Ambreen Razia’s new play suffers from an exposition-heavy conclusion.
Noor has raised her granddaughter for the two years that Aleena has been in prison. Noor and Leila have found a routine that suits them both in their Ilford home. Urdu lessons. Homework. Allah. But now Aleena offers manicures, shopping epics and fizzy drinks. It’s enough to turn anyone’s head.
There’s little more to the plot, but Razia’s play is more an examination of mother/daughter relationships and while the family’s Muslim background provides a frame for the play, it never becomes the focus. Indeed, the generational conflicts on stage will be familiar to many.
The three main actors put in good work. Ashna Rabheru is an excellent Leila, caught between two worlds, one of order and one of chaos, and caught between childhood and adulthood. She suggests that she’s outgrown her life like Jesy Nelson outgrew Little Mix. But it’s an analogy that the audience realises isn’t true, and exposes the inexperience of the 15-year old who seems much younger.
Renu Brindle is a complex Noor, full of facades, worrying too much what people think. Her secret cigarette at the beginning of the play clearly indicates that she isn’t the woman she wants others to think she is. Avita Jay has the hardest role in Aleena. Jay has to bristle with so much life that any excess has the potential to overflow into violence. If Noor is a series of facades then Aleena is vibrantly authentic. Faced with a choice between Noor and Aleena, it’s perhaps too easy for the audience to decide who should take care of Leila.
But sweeping them all aside is Rina Fatania as family friend Fozia. Haughty, unkind and brash, Fozia is a brilliant comic creation and the way Fatania says ‘Mashallah’ is to be savoured, and the audience quite rightly responds with glee. She is so larger than life that she threatens to tip Favour into farce, but it’s a credit to everyone involved that the set piece, coming about halfway in this 90-minute play, is as horrifying as it is hysterical.
The two directors ensure that the play is well-paced, and it’s all played in Liz Whitebread’s functional living-room set, but surely that dug-out kitchen is an accident waiting to happen?
Runs until 6 August 2022
The Reviews Hub Score
Family drama
