Thursday 17 September 2020

THEATRE REVIEW: Sweet Mother - St. Luke's Bombed-Out Church, Liverpool


'Sweet Mother' is a professional theatre production, which is being performed alongside shows at The Liverpool Theatre Festival by Bill Elms. This festival is becoming even more popular as the audiences are getting bigger. 'Sweet Mother' is being performed at St. Luke’s Bombed Out Church in the city centre of Liverpool. The venue was completely virus-secure as the guests' safety was of paramount importance when organising the festival.  

Getting on with the show, 'Sweet Mother', produced by Nwoko Arts, had production values that were of a very good standard. Maria Paul directed Sweet Mother with such an amazing passion for these strong women’s stories to be heard. She had done an incredible amount of research to accurately tell the stories of all these women with aurhencity and honestly, and had an extremely deep understanding and empathy with these women, as she shared similar experiences with them.  

Additionally, Maria Paul wrote Sweet Mother with Ginni Manning, who was employed as a dramaturg.  A lot of passion was etched into the writing of this incredible moving piece of theatre. The women’s stories were narrated in a honest, truthful way with the odd humourous line of dialogue. The writing was extremely emotional and moved a few members of the audience to tears. Elli Randle was the Movement Director, who did a brilliant job, utilising the stage to it’s full potential. 

The cast consisted of Amanda George Higgins as Josie, Margaret Connell as Vera and Lisa McMahon as Joan. The three actresses portrayed the women incredibly well and gave a lot of emotion, compassion and some humour in their performances. I particularly like how the actresses displayed a great amount of affection, pathos and chemistry with each other.  

'Sweet Mother' is set in a time of racial unrest in the Liverpool surburb of Toxteth. The show is a celebration of the empowerment and strength of these white women, who fell in love and married black men. The play therefore is an oral history project using verbatim interviews with four real women, who became good friends, through their shared experience of raising families in 1960s, 1970s and 1980s Toxteth. The show looks at previously untold stories of white women and their struggles and the prejudice they faced in the tough, Liverpool 8 community during those times of racial unrest.  

Josie, Vera and Joan spoke candidly about the shared experiences and the treatment they had endured in their own communities. They gave a fascinating insight in their lives and howthey carried on raising their families. These three women were very strong willed and just wanted to be accepted as a mixed raced family unit. They witnessed a lot of brutality that their loved ones endured just because they fell in love with someone of a different race from them.  

Having the verbatim interviews heard over a voiceover added a great sense of realism and authencity to the narrative of the story. The play was extremely poignant and moving to watch. The show did a fantastic job telling the heartfelt stories of these strong women and placing them at the forefront of the show. There were many running themes in the show, such as love, families, female empowerment, race inequalities and prejudices. The narrative really managed to convey a lot of conflict, friction and true events in these women’s stories.  

The set design of Sweet Mother was extremely decorative and great to look at visually with all the vibrant colours. Sweet Mother was set in the living room of one of the women and had a homely and cosy feel to it. The house appeared well loved and lived in, with all the memories scattered around the living room.   

I would strongly recommend going to see 'Sweet Mother' as it’s one of the most emotional, moving pieces of theatre I have observed. The stories of these strong women were told in an authentic way by the trio of talented actresses. I particularly liked  how certain Liverpool landmarks and places were mentioned in the show and gave the audience a familiarity to their city.  Liverpool has one of the oldest Chinese communities in the UK and is still thriving today.  

A great concept to feature the recent Black Lives Matter movement, as the racial unrest is still happening in places all over the world, even today. Sweet Mother will make you cry, laugh and above all will touch you emotionally. The Q and A after the show was a good opportunity for the audience to ask the director and the actresses questions about the show.I really hope this show develops more and gets to tour other venues, as the stories of the women is as relevant today as it was 40 years ago.

Reviewer - Mark Cooper
on - 16/9/20  

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