The Play About My Dad – Jermyn Street Theatre, London

Writer: Boo Killebrew

Director: Stella Powell-Jones

Reviewer: Scott Matthewman

When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005, it was more than just New Orleans that was hit. Playwright Boo Killebrew, from the Mississippi town of Gulfport, was living in Manhattan at the time – but her estranged father, a doctor at the local hospital, was there.

His stories of that time form the basis of his daughter’s play. But she also throws in tales of her parents’ breakup, and the emotional distance this puts between her and her father. In addition, the structure of the play is discussed between the onstage version of Boo (Hannah Britland) and her father (David Schaal).

This metatextual, play-within-in-a-play format is the weakest part of Killebrew’s work, as if there is some residual guilt for acquiring the real-life tales of her friends and former neighbours – not all of whom survived their encounter with Katrina – and repurposing them for her own ends. The effect of the technique is also lessened under Stella Powell-Jones’s direction: scenes of Boo and her father while they are supposedly “outside” the play itself are delivered as theatrically as the rest of the piece.

It is when Killebrew drops the artifice of her structure and allows the characters to speak for themselves that the play’s true heart makes its full impact. Nathan Welsh and, in particular, Ammar Duffus excel as the paramedics trapped in their ambulance by the rising waters, while Joel Lawes and Annabel Bates provide a believable portrayal of parents who each have different techniques of distracting their ten-year-old son Michael (a startlingly good T’Jai Adu-Yeboah, who alternates the role with Taye Junaid-Evans) from the dangers of the incoming storm.

The most astonishing performance, though, comes from Miquel Brown as Miss Essie, Boo’s father’s former babysitter, and now an old woman waiting out the storm on her own. Miss Essie is, we are told, a storyteller and her dialogue reflects that: her encounter with Katrina is poetic, lyrical and the highlight of Killebrew’s writing.

Next to such profound tales of love, loss, bravery and fear in the face of an enormous natural and humanitarian disaster makes Killebrew’s musings on her own family’s troubles seem inconsequential in comparison. They are saved by the warmth of both Britland and Schaal, accompanied by a scene-stealing turn by Juliet Cowan as Boo’s mother.

Charlotte Espiner’s set design and Elena Peña’s sound, in accordance with the playwright’s stated wishes, do not focus on destruction or rain sounds. Instead, the plywood of (re)construction and a low grumble, which ducks out into silence when the cast hear thunder, lets the theatrical artifice recede to allow the Gulfport residents a greater emphasis.

If only Killebrew had allowed her family story and her metatextual elements to similarly recede, The Play About My Dadwould better serve its true subjects. But her work is nevertheless a satisfying piece of theatre.

Continues until 21 July 2018 | Image: Harry Livingstone