Review – Sweet Mother – Nwoko Arts touring at Lock and Quay Bootle

Sweet Mother is partly a play and partly the public expression of an ongoing oral history project that Maria Paul of Nwoko Arts has been working on for some 4 years or more. It first hit the stage in 2020 in a three woman format, and is now touring in a newly expanded and reworked version.

Margaret Connell, Lisa McMahon and Amanda George Higgins deliver the words of three women whose voices Paul recorded over a period of time, in a series of candid and soul-searching sessions. Joan Caddick, Marie Chicken, Josie Burger and Vera McRae are all white women from Liverpool 8 who married black men, and their words are a reflection on the history of their relationships and how they were treated by their families and the wider community. While the focus is on a period immediately after the 1981 riots, the story that they weave together tells of much more than this.

There is an extraordinary blend of light and shadow, warmth of heart and blazing tempers in the reminiscences that make up this hour or so of theatre. The three main characters sit together putting the finishing touches to carnival costumes, as they prepare to celebrate a shared cultural history, but their needlework is slow as they keep getting lost in memories of the past.

The words spoken by the actors are transcribed verbatim from recordings made by Paul, words that were allowed to flow naturally without the prompting of an interviewer. There is a disarming, almost homespun disjointedness in the assembly and delivery of the dialogue that genuinely feels like a group of friends in a meandering conversation about the past, and this is the key to the power of the work. Everything rings entirely true without a hint of contrived theatricality about it – the theatre is inherent in the words and the situations they describe. Occasional clips of the original voices from the recordings punctuate the narrative, reinforcing the reality of the text.

As mentioned earlier, this is an ongoing project, and in the years since the show’s first outing Paul has conducted further interviews with another generation of women, this time those who are the product of the sort of relationships that the original three speakers reflect upon. Condensing their words into effectively two additional characters a fourth cast member, Helena Rand, turns another mirror on the same subject, viewing it from another angle, which not only gives a new perspective but also fleshes out the original three portraits and places them more in context.

It is in the rawness of the delivery that Sweet Mother finds its greatest strength, as this highlights the genuineness of the words. The stories are illustrative of the violent prejudice that these women and the men they loved faced on a day to day basis, both from their community and their own families, but what is equally striking is the fellowship and mutual support that was built between them. Yes it is a play about injustice and bigotry, but it is also a play about love, strength and solidarity, and the indomitable spirit of a generation of women who refused to be subdued or dismissed. The addition of the new dialogue from a further generation serves to give the show more shape whilst adding to the sense of honesty and self discovery that runs through it.

This performance in the intimacy of the Lock and Quay in Bootle is part of a tour that takes the work around and beyond the city region, and it is clear that this insightful and vital piece of human storytelling is due to continue and evolve.

This review was originally written for publication by Good News Liverpool

Star rating – 4 stars

Margaret Connell, Lisa McMahon and Amanda George Higgins in the 2020 production of Sweet Mother - image © David Munn

 

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