Dreams of Violence

Synopsis

For Hildy, political activism comes easier that dealing with the disorder of her family life: Her druggie son; her philandering husband; her father, misbehaving in a hugely expensive retirement home. And then there's her mother - a charismatic 60s pop star, who clings to her former beauty (and a bottle of vodka), and who sets up camp in Hildy's spare room to belittle her from close range.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 20 July 2009

Stella Feehily’s new play for Out of Joint, directed by Max Stafford-Clark, is smart, sharp and brightly written without coming to any great conclusion.

It’s more like a snappy collection of scenes in the life of Hildy, a forty-something social worker, who is divorcing her surgeon husband, Ben, organizing a revolt by office cleaning women in their City headquarters, and worrying about her old Irish dad in a home, her alcoholic former pop star mother and a son who’s a drug addict.

So Hildy’s got her hands full, like most of us, and while Catherine Russell fires off a few good shots and manages to suggest a tangled agenda of do-gooding and domestic crisis, she’s rather too secretive and retiring an actress to launch the full comic impact of the play; everything seems neatly laid out and nicely constructed, rather like Ben’s dinner of swordfish for two served on square white plates.

Not surprisingly, Hildy ends up in hospital with a heart condition. The straw that ...

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Latest User Review

Henry Poulding - 20 July 2009:

enjoyed it - not sure what the other comments mean, because it seemed to be saying something really interesting about a 40-something woman to me. Reminded me a bit of 'Harper Regan' at the National...

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