Forgiving (My Mother)
It's nothing like what you'd expect. You're probably expecting something deep, dark, and dramatic. You're probably expecting a confessional narrative. You're probably expecting an adult woman or, adult women, working through a complicated mother-daughter relationship that hasn't quite changed since the daughter's teenage years but must. We're getting too old for this now.
Emilia Nurmukhamet, Patrycja Dynowska, and Anna Udras' Forgiving (My Mother) is nothing like that. It goes a bit into philosophical concepts such as Determinism and Free Will, yes. But it's also a light and humourous, Socratic dance with the audience, deeply rooted in auto-fiction a la Sergio Blanco and (perhaps) Sami Ibrahim's Multiple Casualty Incident.
The three are in rehearsal for a play called, Forgiving My Mother. The audience has been invited in to this rehearsal and, judging by what we're witnessing, it's a 2-hander, kitchen sink drama between two siblings striving to dissect and draw conclusions from their own generational trauma. Anna looks on as director. This play is based on her own fraught relationship with her younger sister, Liza. Pat (Anna) comes to sit by Emilia (Liza), initiating a scene in which she begs Liza to forgive their mother for any past ill treatment inflicted on her. But Emilia can't get past one line: "It's not that bad? Were you not there when she-?" She keeps on forgetting what comes next, but why is she forgetting the line? Is it not connected enough to the character's arc? Does it not tie back strongly enough to the character's motivation?
In a fourth wall-breaking sequence of events, apologies are made to the audience for the line flubs. Anna walks the actors through a sequence of ridiculous exercises that are a hilarious contrast to the scene seen previously. For instance: "Imagine you're holding a bowl full of your trauma." Then, a game of hot potato, incorporating the lines back in slowly. A bit of Meisner repetition, of course. Jokes about theatre in the theatre are usually grating, but this time, it was far from it. The ensemble uses it as a clear tool to disarm their audience. It's worth mentioning here that it's difficult to ignore Nurmukhamet's improvisational talent: she often uses the live reactions of the audience in the room to riff, blurring the lines between fact and fiction to the utmost degree. One highlight for me was when audience members arrived late and Emilia had to re-explain what had taken place.
Emilia becomes increasingly frustrated by the direction this is all taking, and things get more heated among the trio. Big differences in opinion emerge about trauma-dumping and, in particular, Anna's potentially inaccurate portrayal of her own sister. This raises questions about whose story this really is and who has the right to tell it. But, respectfully, we, the audience, never uncover the full reason for Liza's resentment toward her mother. The 'trauma dump' that we've been teased with never arrives.
It's a bold move at this year's Fringe Festival which, I've been told by many, seems more like a breeding ground for therapeutic solo shows. But who are these shows for? It is clear that Forgiving (My Mother) is designed to lure in just that type: those audiences who are open and receptive to such 'theatre as therapy' shows, but also, it's for those of us who are deeply skeptical of the genre. This could lend itself to deeper questions like, Who is theatre for? And this is certainly what lingers.
The piece leaves more questions than answers, and allows you to formulate your own questions, which very well may be based on your own complicated relationships with close family members. Or even, your complicated relationship between your role as a maker, creator, artist, theatre maker-- whichever applies. It's a brilliant critique on the art form using the form itself as a weapon.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Forgiving (My Mother) is playing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival until 10 August 2024. More info and tickets can be found here.
