Writer: Giles Fernando
Director: Penny Gkritzapi
The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children, as The Merchant of Venice tells us. In a diptych of one-act plays, Giles Fernando explores how both fathers and mothers are affected by their relationship with their parents, and how that affects the relationship they have with their own offspring.
In Mothers’ Day – playing first on the night reviewed, with the order swapping throughout the run – Sarah Wanendeya gives an outwardly comedic turn as Pauline, a Northern actor whose aspirations of rising to speaking roles from her status as an extra (sorry, “additional actress”) are scuppered by, among other things, an unexpected pregnancy.
The potshots at the TV and film industries, and their acting side in particular, are light and familiar; these are well-travelled routes to satire. So, too, is Pauline’s overestimation of her own star status. We’re not quite in the territory of Julie Walters as Boadicea Overall in Victoria Wood’s behind-the-scenes mockumentary of Acorn Antiques, but we’re not far off.
Far more interesting is the relationship Pauline has with her mother, a woman unsupportive of her acting career path and who is wont to use her daughter’s full name as a barbed weapon in their tense conversations – a technique Pauline uses with her own daughter, Joan Samantha, as she grows up and decides that she, too, wants to be an actor.
Pauline’s obliviousness to how her parental style is similar to that she rejects when coming from her own mother is both amusing and tinged with sadness. It paints a picture of a woman who, were she a bit more empathetic, might appreciate her own parent the way she wishes her daughter appreciates her.
The central character in Fathers’ Day could not be more different. Joe (El Anthony) works as a cleaner, cleaning aeroplanes during the day and pretending to fly them on his Xbox flight simulator game at night. His fractious relationship with his son’s mother means that he’s unable to see his boy on Father’s Day – and ends up stealing one of the planes he is cleaning, relying on his in-game knowledge to take to the skies.
While there is only one person on stage throughout, this play feels more like a two-hander, with the bulk of the conversation occurring between Joe and Jennifer Aries’s Kerry, the air traffic controller who tries to steer the petrified pilot towards a safe landing.
The theft and flight might seem a fanciful proposition, but Anthony sells the character of Joe in a believable way. The impetuousness of his actions feels as if it springs from his character, even as it guarantees that he will never be allowed to see his son again (assuming he can walk away from the landing). It’s an extreme version of the Fathers4Justice protests, where men objecting to not having a place in their children’s lives committed actions that suggested such decisions may not have been completely wrong.
In the moments of tenderness in his audio conversation with Kerry, we are shown how Joe’s relationship with his own father, a pilot of cargo planes, was strained to such an extent that he wants his own son to have a very different relationship with him. Joe’s realisation that he cannot project his own anxieties onto others feels like a character epiphany, if only he can survive to act upon it.
Touching moments such as that are worthwhile moments that illustrate the power of both of these short plays. Parent-child relationships come in all shapes and sizes – but whatever their faults or virtues, they will forever be fertile ground for playwriting.
Continues until 21 June 2025
The Rviews Hub Score
Touching
