Writer and Director: Clare Lucy
Billed as ‘Mostly a One Woman Musical’, this description actually does the show few favours. This is a poignant and gentle play with a difficult but important narrative concept at its heart – miscarriage.
When Mara suffers a miscarriage she is knocked off the path she thought was planned out for her. She feels isolated and is grieving for a baby that she didn’t get to have. The story follow’s Mara’s first year or so after the miscarriage as we learn how she responds to her personal tragedy.
In solo play style, action revolves entirely around Mara, we see her talking to other characters, we hear them and we watch interactions with them, but always from Mara’s point of view. There are also key moments of soliloquy and times when Mara addresses the audience directly. This, and the strength of the acting by Nina Logue, makes for a fascinating and engaging set up, with the audience warming to the incredibly likeable Mara immediately.
This is also a show with huge potential, a self-confessed ‘work in progress’, the writer/director Clare Lucy initially wrote a full scale play and has more musical numbers, but produced this distilled version for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Running at around 45 minutes, there is a certain feeling of teaser trailer about it. We are introduced to characters through the protagonist Mara’s lens, learning tantalising snippets about them but never delving too much into their storylines as there just isn’t time. There are a few songs thrown in, but in this short production they feel just that, as if they have been dropped in rather than them standing up in their own right as important musical numbers.
It is a possibility that Lucy may develop this into a full-scale musical in the future, but in truth it is in the dialogue, the rawness of the intimate relationship between Mara and the audience and the cosy, close feel of the production that makes the play truly shine. In particular, there are three scenarios told in a single spotlight on stage and these pieces are outstanding. Logue is breath-taking in these moments and is able to reduce the audience to both tears and smiles.
Mara’s husband Durand (Dan Stanford) is only in the play for a couple of scenes, but in that time he makes an impact as the ‘perfect’ husband that in Mara’s eyes can’t do anything right. Stanford has a good voice and plays the slightly awkward but loving husband well, the pain that he is clearly also feeling etched on his face.
It is possible that the show needs more light and shade, a little light relief perhaps, there are few moments for the audience to chuckle or take a breath, and while Mara clearly has a sense of humour as well as a creative and imaginative side to her, drawn out by Arabella (voiced by Mabel Stoner) there is a feeling of relentlessness about her journey and it would be hard to maintain this level of emotion for longer than 45 minutes without some lighter moments.
This is a warm and satisfying play, with a positive while not overly feel-good ending. Incredibly importantly it also shines a light on women’s experiences of miscarriage, something that is not understood enough by those who have not experienced it. The receptive audience came away informed as well as entertained.
Runs until 30th September
The Reviews Hub Score
Engaging acting performance
