Many a great play has been crafted from incongruous ingredients, but this blend of Alzheimer’s, sexual abuse, a youthful attempt to walk on water and teenage enthusiasm for marine biology fails to satisfy and potential comedy lies mostly dormant.
The compensations are convincing acting, directed by Lolly Susi, and a chance for a studio audience to witness close-to that veteran actress Susannah York can still act.
York takes the role of Mama Palmer, a senile mother, with moments of lucidity, who prowls the stage in anguish and sings wildly in a gravelly voice.
Accents are generally well-sustained as Palmer is confronted by her two contrasting daughters.
Frances Palmer (Sarah Berger) has been driven to drink by being cooped up with her mother in Indiana, while her sister Betsy Baumgartner (Mel Hudson) has pursued glamour in California.
She has been fleeing family secrets that predictably turn out to involve childhood abuse, increasingly a cliché of modern drama, but which eventually earns audience sympathy for this self-centred, anorexic, failed fashion designer, who never lets anyone else finish a sentence.
Until then, our emotional support has naturally flowed towards the enduring Frances and Betsy’s daughter Henny (Victoria Yeates) - a remarkably promising young woman in danger of falling prey to a continuing cycle of abuse.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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