The Member of the Wedding

Synopsis

Wild with longings she can't explain, Frankie acts crazy when her brother gets married. 'Two's company and three is a crowd. That's the main thing about a wedding.' Berenice says to Frankie. Set in 1945 in the American South, this is t he story of the bond between Frankie, the adolescent dreamer, and Sadie Berenice Brown, the cook who mothers the motherless girl. It has as its backdrop the end of an era, before civil rights. In these three months of Summer into Fall, Frankie is growing up, but the world is also changing for Berenice. Age 12 and over

Our Review:

14 September 2007

There is no question that you feel you are watching a great play as Carson McCullers’ The Member of the Wedding unravels, rather slowly, on the wide acres of the Young Vic stage. The problem with Matthew Dunster’s unevenly acted and overly leisurely production is that it’s not always easy to follow exactly what is going on, or what exactly is being said.

Basically, the play is a study in the adolescence of a 12-year-old tomboyish American girl, Frankie Addams, in a Southern back yard and kitchen in the summer of 1945. The war seems a long way away, and is coming to an end. Frankie’s older brother is getting married and Frankie wants to be a “member” of his wedding party; she’s too young.

This disappointment is the flash point of her mounting frustration and sense of alienation. Frankie’s mother is long dead and her father is an irritable fusspot. Her friends are starting to go out with boys.

Her only refuge is the kitchen and the wise co...

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Latest User Review

addicted to theatre - 8 October 2007:

Yes, the play isn't that great. Yes, some of the accents can be a bit hard to decipher. But go now. The main performances are outstanding, and that from Portia, playing the black maid is the best acting I've seen this year. The staging is also excellent, and makes for one of the most moving pieces of theatre I've ever seen....

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