Once We Were Mothers

Synopsis

Three very different mothers face three very different situations. This is a play about the joy and heartbreak of motherhood. Ali is a ballet dancer and then she gives birth to Flora. "Her blood sugar’s a bit low, she has a hole in her heart - we don’t know how serious that is. Oh, and she’s Down’s Syndrome." Milena struggles to survive with her children in a country torn by war. "They told us, if you want to see your children alive, do as we say". Kitty is a housewife who had two daughters, now it seems she only has one. "Maybe when she has her own children she’ll feel the pull, need to revisit where she came from. And I’ll be here. Because that’s what mothers are, they are home...They are safety. The centre of it all, where it went wrong or right, the beginning and end". Three stories for today in which the human spirit is tested to the utmost and triumphs.

Our Review:

15 October 2007

There are three unconnected stories of mothers and daughters in Lisa Evans’ new play, Once We Were Mothers, at the Orange Tree. After the revelatory seasons of suffragist and Edwardian dramas at this address, it feels like a rapid run through the last century to cover the subject “Maternal Instincts, Problems With”.

It also feels like a radio play, through no fault of Ellie Jones’ nicely cast and thoughtful production. Evans is an experienced operator – she has written episodes of EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City on television – but there are no pressure points in her dramatic writing, and no theatrical synthesis in construction.

The maternal trio are Ali (Sarah Mowat), a ballet dancer who has produced a daughter, Flora, with Down’s Syndrome in present-day Richmond; Milena (Mairead Carty), a Muslim in “war-torn” former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, whose family is beset by persecution and poverty; and Kitty ([Esther Ruth Ell...

Read more of the review

Latest User Review

No reviews yet

Click here to add your review