Life is transient. One day we’re here, the next day we’re at sea, a wisp or a distant memory.
This is a little gem that is not to be missed.
Fiona Nash has just lost her mother. She wasn’t with her when she died because her sister, Leslie, didn’t call her in time. She learns of her mother’s death from a voicemail.
Fiona’s journey through grief started with the loss of her father at age six. Her mum didn’t make the funeral, preferring to down a bottle of gin instead. Her sister delivered the eulogy and now, 20 years later, it’s Fiona’s turn. She struggles with what to write, pleading with the audience for support. What can she possibly say? What if her mother is disappointed in her? The worry here is that the writing begins to circle around on itself, but such is the nature of grief. If there is repetition it is only because she is trying to make sense of what’s senseless. She disagrees with Virginia Woolf – someone does not need to die so we can learn the value of life.
Carefully constructed, McKenzie has written a deft and supple script that address heavy themes without ever becoming self-indulgent. She is eminently likable and so clearly in control that we forget that she has achieved something remarkable – a 50-minute speech about death that is funny, moving and never boring. As Fiona’s monologue trips along another child-like narrative runs in parallel. It is a story of a lost fisherman told largely through effective puppetry as she stands in front of us in her wellies and yellow mac.
In the end, we are left with a handful of small miracles. She remembers that her mother’s hands smelled of oranges, that she liked baked beans in her spaghetti and that she once made the ordinary extraordinary, saving someone’s life over a cup of tea. This is a little gem that is not to be missed.
