Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until Sun 24 Aug (not 4, 11, 18) @ times vary
A woman’s relationship with her mother can often be a complicated one, and that’s before the looming fear of turning into her sets in. Parental influences are permanent markers on the soul – whether we like it or not. Quebecoise dramatist Jennifer Tremblay’s play The Carousel, produced by Stellar Quines and performed by Maureen Beattie, follows one woman as she goes to look after her dying mother while at the same time looking for answers to her mother’s troubled childhood.
The first part of Tremblay’s trilogy, The List, was a Fringe First and Herald Angel award winner in 2012. Tremblay’s text is poetic and colourful, delivered against John Byrne’s funfair-esque backdrop that elegantly reflects the reminiscent, dream-like memories the woman recalls. Beattie delivers a wildly energetic performance, as she physically illustrates all three women over decades – each a very different product of their own generation, but in many ways, all the same: naivety, sternness, bitterness and hope shapes them over the years. It’s a familiar story of longing: to protect, to venture and to discover who we are, because of and in spite of our past.