@ Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Thu 25 Mar 2016 (and touring)
Netting has its roots in Òran Mór ’s innovative short drama strand A Play, A Pie and A Pint and it rather shows. At only an hour long, it has three actors (one of whom is its writer/producer, Morna Young) and ends rather abruptly. It’s part of a larger playwriting project inspired by the loss of Young’s own father to the sea when she was a child.
We open somewhere in North East Scotland. Kitty (Carol Ann Crawford) is the busy, bustling mother figure – her husband and two grown sons have been lost at sea three months previously, the bodies have not been found. She and her sons’ wives are in limbo. Lodging with Kitty is her daughter-in-law, shallow Alison (Morna Young) who mooches and mopes about, expecting Kitty to make her cups of tea and act as emotional sponge. Into the fray comes the high-spirited Sylvia (Sarah McCardie) who can’t see the point of moping and is narked at Alison’s sponging off Kitty’s goodwill.
Each woman deals with this limbo of grief in their own way: Alison in brooding, Sylvia in vodka and Kitty in knitting. The knitting metaphor is never strained – raw motions threatening to unravel, family ties that bind… and strangle – but it’s clearly there. There is an added complication regarding the relationships of the sons to Alison and Sylvia adding a layer of unspoken mistrust. The so-called “unbreakable bonds” of tightknit fishing communities never looked so threadbare.
This is a chamber piece that’s poignant, funny and very real. Yet it’s a slow burn that somehow fails to fully ignite. The clever set by Alice Wilson isn’t claustrophobic; maybe it should be. Morna Young and director Alie Butler avoid the pitfalls of making the play about grief per se. It eschews histrionics and has an almost Chekhovian calm, yet reflects our careless modern world where people indulge their moods or just walk away when things get difficult. Finally, like thunder breaking a leaden sky, the rumbling family tensions are exposed when Sylvia finally lets rip. More of this, please.
All the playing is subtle and it is refreshing to hear Doric in a contemporary setting. The direction has delicacy and polish. Netting, however, feels like it is part of a bigger play. I really want to see the rest of it.